m 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, j 
 
 Chap. 3 , __,_L____ 
 
 Shelf __-_jy\_£-_- | 
 
 . . _ f 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. c f 
 
Lectures on the Church, 
 
 DELIVERED IN 
 
 St. Francis Xavier's Church, 
 
 New York, 1870-71. 
 
 By Rev. D. A. Merrick, S.J. 
 
 NEW YORK! 
 
 P. O'SHEA, 27 BARCLAY STREET, 
 
 1872. 
 
 
2+v* 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The following Lectures cannot lay claim to 
 any great originality. They have been has- 
 tily written out from notes collected irregu- 
 larly at different intervals of time. The trans- 
 lations of extracts from the Fathers have been 
 principally taken from approved works, such 
 as the " Faith of Catholics," Allies' " See of 
 Peter," etc. ; and most of the other arguments 
 employed may be found scattered through 
 different books of controversy. The object 
 aimed at in the Lectures has been to connect 
 these arguments in such a form as might add 
 to the force of the impression they are by 
 themselves calculated to produce, in particu- 
 lar by the brief and simple explanation of cer- 
 tain incidental points of Catholic doctrine. St. 
 Augustin's principle, that it is good to multi- 
 ply good books on the same subject, in order 
 
iv Introduction. 
 
 that the same truth may have a chance of be- 
 ing presented to a greater number of readers 
 and in a manner to suit every variety of 
 minds and tastes, is the only excuse for offer- 
 ing to the public another work on a contro- 
 versy which many men are beginning to con- 
 sider in our days, not only as exhausted, but 
 as obsolete. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Introduction 3 
 
 Lecture I. — The Bible 7 
 
 Lecture II. — The Bible 42 
 
 Lecture III. — The Church 87 
 
 Lecture IV. — The Church 131 
 
 Lecture V. — The Pope 174 
 
 Lecture VI. — The Pope 217 
 
LECTURE I. 
 The Bible. 
 
 All Christians agree in the belief that, 
 since the day when the twelve Apostles first 
 preached to the astonished Jews in the streets 
 of Jerusalem, there is but one true, revealed 
 religion, obligatory on all mankind, that of 
 Jesus Christ — the one to-day believed in, and 
 practised by, His Church. That worship, ex- 
 terior as well as interior, is due to God, as the 
 natural expression of man, His creature's de- 
 pendence on Him, is a truth evident to reason 
 and flowing from the fact of God's existence 
 and the nature of man's physical and social 
 being. That it is in God's power, moreover, 
 to reveal a particular mode of worship, which 
 He wishes to be adopted by all men to the 
 exclusion of every other, I suppose, in com- 
 mencing these lectures, to be admitted by my 
 
8 The Bible. 
 
 hearers as equally evident to reason. I shall 
 further suppose the facts narrated by the 
 Evangelists of the life and teachings of Jesus 
 Christ, to be admitted also as historically true, 
 as well as the certainty of Christ's mission to 
 teach men the right way in which to serve 
 God. There are, no doubt, in these days, 
 many men — and the number is unfortunately 
 increasing — who permit themselves to doubt 
 all these truths, and even the existence of a 
 Creator, and these men found their doubts on 
 the discoveries of modern science. But so 
 did the skeptics of the sixteenth century found 
 their doubts on the discoveries of science, till 
 further discoveries furnished a solution to all 
 their difficulties. Even the foremost men in 
 the ranks of unbelieving science admit that they 
 have only reasons for doubt, and their own 
 declarations as to the great caution with which 
 conclusions are to be drawn from scientific 
 data, show how weak indeed are the argu- 
 ments by which they would impair credence 
 in truths which otherwise stand on a basis 
 
The Bible. 9 
 
 of the most clearly demonstrated certitude. 
 Granted the existence of an intelligent, per- 
 sonal God, that He directs by His constant 
 providence a world which is the effect of His 
 own creation, is a necessary consequence. 
 That He may also, by the gift of prophecy, 
 make known to certain of His creatures those 
 future events which are always present to His 
 own Eternity, and that, by miracle, He may 
 suspend those physical laws, the operation of 
 which is not essential to the existence of 
 matter, are conclusions also which commend 
 . themselves as obviously logical to the human 
 mind. Whether He actually did reveal pro- 
 phecies which were fulfilled in the person 
 of Jesus Christ, and whether His miraculous 
 intervention is manifest in the works per- 
 formed by Jesus Christ, is simply an historical 
 question, to be resolved by the laws of histor- 
 ical investigation. That such prophecies ex- 
 isted, that these miracles were wrought, and 
 that, taken in connection with the eminent 
 sanctity of the doctrine taught by Him, they 
 
io The Bible. 
 
 prove Jesus Christ to have been the messen- 
 ger of God, is the belief of all those who wish 
 to -be called Christians. The only question 
 with them is, which of the different forms of 
 existing Christian worship has most claims 
 upon their respect, and whether any one of 
 these can prove itself to have been the sole 
 form established by Christ, with the obligation 
 of being accepted and followed by all those 
 who embraced His doctrine. It is to such 
 persons only that I address myself, for it is 
 with such persons only that my arguments 
 will have any weight. 
 
 That which first strikes the mind of one 
 who contemplates the whole Christian world, 
 is the fact of its being divided into two great 
 sections. One of these sections, which is 
 compact, united, truly Catholic, in this sense, 
 that wherever it exists its doctrine is alto- 
 gether the same, maintains : that it alone is 
 the true Church of Jesus Christ ; that the 
 other section, composed of innumerable sub- 
 divisions, is not at all the Church of Christ, 
 
The Bible. 1 1 
 
 but is made up only of dead branches cut off 
 from it, their parent trunk ; that outside of it, 
 and in them (except in the case of invincible 
 ignorance, when the soul in reality belongs 
 to the true Church without knowing where 
 that Church is) there is no salvation ; that it 
 alone can determine what is of Christian faith 
 and what is not, and that to its decisions im- 
 plicit submission is due ; that to every sin- 
 cere inquirer its divine origin can be proved, 
 and that consequently all are obliged to enter 
 its communion. This section is called the 
 Roman Catholic Church. All those compos- 
 ing the other section, whether Greeks or 
 Nestorians or Protestants, agree in asserting 
 that it is not necessary for salvation to belong 
 to any one branch of the Church of Christ, 
 since no one of them alone can claim infalli- 
 bility ; and, while accusing the Roman Church 
 of erroneous doctrines, they admit that all 
 those in its communion may be saved : this 
 the Protestants explain more distinctly, by 
 declaring that what is necessary to be be- 
 
1 2 The Bible. 
 
 lieved are the fundamental or essential points 
 of the Christian revelation, and that these 
 points are clearly expressed in Scripture and 
 are professed by all orthodox Christian be- 
 lievers. 
 
 Here are two systems of teaching diametri- 
 cally opposed to each other, not only as con- 
 traries, but even as contradictories. If I said 
 of an object that it was white, and another 
 person said it was black, we might both be 
 mistaken ; for it might be brown. But here 
 what one portion of the Christian Church af- 
 firms, the other denies ; what one denies, the 
 other affirms. The one says, I alone am the 
 Church of Christ ; the other says, You are not 
 alone the Church of Christ. The first repeats, 
 I alone have kept the pure doctrine of Christ, 
 and all my doctrine is His teaching; the other 
 replies, You have not alone kept the pure doc- 
 trine Christ, and all your doctrine is not His 
 teaching. The first continues, All souls are 
 mine, and out of me there is no salvation ; the 
 second answers, Your pretensions are unwar- 
 
The Bible. 13 
 
 rantable, in order to be saved, there is no 
 obligation for any Christian to enter your 
 communion. Can both -these assertions be 
 true? Evidently not. Can God have autho- 
 rized both ? Assuredly not, since only one 
 of them can be true, and God can only ap- 
 prove of that which is the truth. Can God 
 be unconcerned as to which side we embrace 
 in this dispute. Without speaking of the 
 minor discrepancies existing among all those 
 outside of the Roman Catholic Church, and 
 supposing for the moment, that God may be 
 indifferent as to these minor discrepancies 
 even in the matter of religious truth — is it 
 possible that He can view with indifference 
 this state of contradiction, this violent antagon- 
 ism, this scandal of the disruption of Christian- 
 ity and of Christendom ? Can He who hates 
 falsehood, who hates a lie, because He is Him- 
 self infinite Sanctity and Truth ; who hates er- 
 ror, who hates every divergence from the truth, 
 because, no matter how slight that divergence 
 may be in the origin, if logically carried out, 
 
14 The Bible. 
 
 it will lead to the greatest extremes of error 
 and untruth; can He, after having sent an 
 envoy upon earth to publish a religion which 
 he was to seal with his own life's blood, and 
 which it was to be binding on all the children 
 of men to receive and conform themselves to, 
 under pain of the eternal displeasure of their 
 Maker ; can He now be careless as to whether 
 that religion is taught as He wished it to be 
 believed, and practiced as He wished it to be 
 practiced? All this is impossible. Hence 
 arises another question : What is the duty of 
 man in view of this antagonism ? Here is the 
 Roman Catholic Church which maintains that 
 she alone represents truly the religion of 
 Christ, and that all persons are bound to join 
 her fold under penalty of the extreme sanc- 
 tion of God's eternal justice. It is true all the 
 Protestant, with the schismatical sects, deny 
 this assumption. But in presence of this . 
 affirmation and of this denial, what is the duty 
 in conscience of every man who has not yet 
 firmly grasped in his mind the conviction of 
 
The Bible. 1 5 
 
 the perfect truth of the one and the falsity of 
 the other ? Can he remain in a state of 
 doubt ? And if he does not believe that God 
 is pleased that he should remain in a state of 
 doubt, what obligation is imposed upon him ? 
 That of inquiry, assuredly ; that of examining 
 the grounds on which this affirmation and 
 this denial are based, in order to know which 
 is founded on the solid rock, and which is 
 built upon the moving sand. If this investi- 
 gation be accompanied by prayer to God in 
 order that He may strengthen the feeble light 
 of human reason, and conducted with true 
 sincerity of heart, there can be no fear that it 
 will not lead to a satisfactory conclusion. For 
 God would not be God, He would deny His 
 own infinite Justice and Wisdom, if He refus- 
 ed to furnish His creature with the necessary 
 means for acquiring the certain knowledge of 
 that truth in which He obliges him to believe, 
 and to the investigation of the existence of 
 which He obliges him, when doubting, to de- 
 vote the energies of his heart and intellect. 
 
1 6 The Bible. 
 
 " If," says St. Augustin, " God's providence 
 does not watch over human affairs, then we 
 have nothing to do with religion. But if the 
 voice of nature itself and our conscience bid 
 us seek God and serve Him, then we must 
 not doubt that God Himself has appointed an 
 authoritative means, by clinging to which we 
 are certain finally to reach Him." — (De Util. 
 Credendi xvi., 34.) " A path and away there 
 shall be," says the Prophet Isaias, " and it 
 shall be called the holy way : the unclean 
 shall not pass over it ; and this shall be for 
 you a straight way, so that fools shall not en- 
 ter therein ?" — (xxxv., 8.) Which is this so 
 straight way that fools cannot enter therein ? 
 this way so clear for the clean-hearted to 
 God ? this authoritative means by clinging to 
 which we are to reach God ? No doubt it will 
 reveal itself to an honest research. The object 
 of these lectures is to facilitate that research : 
 and the affirmation of this eminent Father 
 and the promise of the prophet, are cheerful 
 
The Bible. 1 7 
 
 and encouraging forebodings of the success of 
 our undertaking. 
 
 Two ways of examining the merits of the 
 controversy between Protestants and Catho- 
 lics will present themselves to the mind of an 
 inquirer. The one, at first sight the more ex- 
 haustive, will be to consider in detail all the 
 points of doctrine on which the two religions 
 are at variance. But a little reflection will 
 suffice to satisfy the intelligence that the other 
 method is both more radical and more satis- 
 factory. This is to consider, since the Roman 
 Catholic Church claims an authority which the 
 Protestant churches deny to it, what are the 
 arguments by which she endeavors to sub- 
 stantiate her claim on the one hand, and, on 
 the other hand, for what reason or reasons do 
 they refuse to admit this her claim. Herein 
 lies the fundamental difference between the 
 two opponents. A Christian must believe. 
 On what authority must he believe ? The 
 Catholic answers : On the authority of the 
 
1 8 The Bible. 
 
 Church. To this the Protestant says : No. 
 Thus is started the controversy on the Chris- 
 tian rule of faith. Now in this dispute I must 
 premise, and it will be admitted, that the Ca- 
 tholic Church has a presumption in her favor. 
 She is on the defensive. She has the right 
 of possession. She was for fifteen hundred 
 years before Protestantism came into exist- 
 ence. It is therefore the business of the sects, 
 who are here the besieging party, to bring 
 forward guns of such heavy calibre as will 
 certainly break down her walls. If their own 
 position is untenable, if their batteries will not 
 stand fire, it is clear that she will remain un- 
 injured. Let us then consider to-night what 
 it is they substitute instead of the authority 
 of the Church as the ground on which the 
 Christian has to found his belief. Afterwards 
 we shall review the arguments by which the 
 right of the Church to the power which she 
 claims appears to be justified. 
 
 The Protestant rule of faith, to express it 
 in the tersest manner, is — the Bible. Catho- 
 
The Bible. 1 9 
 
 Kcs admit the authority of the Bible, but — 
 as interpreted by the Church ; nor do they 
 concede that all which is to be believed as of 
 faith is contained in the books which com- 
 pose that sacred volume. According to the 
 Protestant theory, the Bible needs no com- 
 mon interpreter ; every right-minded individ- 
 ual will find therein clearly enough expressed 
 all that it is necessary for him to believe. 
 Now let us proceed to see whether this theo- 
 ry can stand. 
 
 The first thing to be established with re- 
 gard to a rule of faith, is, its authority. Let 
 a lawyer appeal before a judge to a certain 
 law, which, on being challenged, he cannot 
 prove to have ever been the law, and what 
 will be thought of him? How, then, do 
 Protestants establish the authority of the 
 Bible alone as their rule of faith ? Either 
 from the Bible itself, or otherwise. Not oth- 
 erwise, since their final appeal is to the Bible. 
 Is it from the Bible itself? This would be a 
 begging of the question ; for the question is, 
 
20 The Bible. 
 
 Is the Bible our final court of appeal ? Here 
 is a dilemma, out of which it is impossible to 
 escape, except by saying that the Bible asserts 
 its own authority, at the same time presenting 
 such intrinsic marks of credibility as force the 
 mind to submit to its testimony. Whether the 
 Bible bears such unmistakable features as ne- 
 cessitate the belief in its divine character, we 
 shall consider in another place. Meanwhile, for 
 the moment, let us admit that the sacred vol- 
 ume can testify in its own behalf: is there one 
 passage in holy Writ which shows the Bible 
 to be the only rule of faith ? I answer : not 
 one. Protestant divines, indeed, have alleged 
 many passages, disagreeing among them- 
 selves as to which really proved in their favor 
 and which did not. But I can safely assert 
 that there is not one passage in all Scripture 
 which has the least weight on their side in 
 this controversy. As an illustration : we may 
 suppose that, in his controversy with Arch- 
 bishop Hughes, Mr. Breckenridge, when call- 
 ed upon, must have produced at first those 
 
The Bible, 2 1 
 
 texts of Scripture which appeared to him 
 most convincingly in favor of t his side of the 
 question. He gives two : they are his Ajax 
 and his Achilles. The first is from Isaias viii. 
 20 : " " To the law rather and to the testimo- 
 ny." Now this passage, taken in connection 
 with its context, is simply a warning given by 
 the prophet to the Jews against believing in 
 fortune-tellers — in those diviners who, like the 
 witch of Endor and our modern professors of 
 spirit-rapping, pretended to evoke the dead 
 for the purpose of giving information to the 
 living ; and the attempt to make more out 
 of it is only a violent effort of the imagina- 
 tion. So St. Peter tells us that "we have 
 the more firm prophetical word ; whereunto 
 you do well to attend ;" and he says imme- 
 diately afterward, that " no prophecy is made 
 t>y private interpretation " (2 Pet. i. 19). His 
 second text is from 2 Tim. iii. 16: "All 
 Scripture inspired from God is profitable/' 
 etc. No one proclaims this more loudly than 
 the whole Catholic Church. That the Scrip- 
 
22 
 
 The Bible. 
 
 ture is inspired, that it is useful " to teach, to 
 reprove, to correct, to instruct," we most 
 firmly believe ; — and therefore we hold that 
 it should be read especially by bishops, such 
 as St. Timothy to whom St. Paul is writing 
 was, whose duty precisely is, to teach, to in- 
 struct, to correct, to reprove. There is noth- 
 ing in this text to signify that the Scripture as 
 understood by the private reader, is the only 
 rule of faith. Quite the contrary ; in the 
 verse immediately preceding the commence- 
 ment of the text quoted, St. Paul warns Tim- 
 othy to " continue" in the things he had 
 " learned," and which had been committed to 
 "him," knowing of whom " he had learned 
 them," thus evidently alluding to tradition, 
 another means for acquiring the knowledge 
 of the truth, altogether distinct from the read- 
 ing of the Scripture. I might add, that the 
 Scriptures here referred to, being such as 
 Timothy had known " from his infancy," 
 could be necessarily only those of the Old 
 Testament ; consequently this text has no 
 
The Bible. 23 
 
 reference to that portion of the Bible, the 
 New Testament, which is the principal part 
 for Christians. If I were to repeat all the 
 texts which have been brought forward by 
 the same side in this dispute, you would find 
 that they are all equally irrelevant to the 
 point at issue. 
 
 The prophet has told us that the way to 
 God will be so straight that not even fools 
 can go astray therein. Is the Protestant 
 rule of faith such a road ? It is not. For, 
 first : The Bible is a dead letter. No dead 
 letter can explain itself. " The letter kills, 
 the spirit vivifies." What is it that reveals 
 that spirit of the law ? A living interpreter. 
 Every written law requires a living inter- 
 preter. That living interpreter existed for 
 the Old Law — which Protestants to-day un- 
 dertake to interpret privately, as well as the 
 New — in the Jewish Sanhedrim. "Thou, 
 shalt do whatever the priests of the Levitical 
 race shall teach thee, according to what I 
 have commanded them," says the book of 
 
24 The Bible. 
 
 Deuteronomy, xxiv. 8. " Ask the priests the 
 law," says the prophet Aggaeus, ii. 12. "The 
 lips of the priest shall keep knowledge," says 
 the prophet Malachi, " and they shall seek the 
 law at his mouth." So it is in all civil societies : 
 for this reason we have courts of law, and 
 judges and lawyers and precedents. In Eng- 
 land and America, besides the Statute, we 
 have the Common Law (so much boasted of), 
 which is a tradition. And, in these courts, 
 old judges who have the law at their fingers* 
 ends, will listen attentively to young advo- 
 cates, through the desire, if not the expecta- 
 tion, of hearing something which will increase 
 their intelligence of the spirit of the law. 
 " The existence is necessary," says Bayle, an 
 inpartial authority, since he was neither a 
 Protestant nor a Catholic, but an infidel phi- 
 losopher, " in every society of a tribunal 
 whose decision is final in the differences of 
 private individuals, and which can inflict pun- 
 ishment on those who refuse it obedience : 
 otherwise there is no remedy in cases of 
 
The Bible. 2 5 
 
 trouble, and controversies would be eternal." 
 Therefore in the Christian society such a 
 tribunal must exist ; could Christ, the wisest 
 of legislators, have appointed as arbiter of 
 religious controversies a dead letter? 
 
 Secondly, the Bible is obscure. This is a 
 fact. It is idle to say that God cannot write 
 obscurely. He would not have done so, had 
 He intended the Bible to be self-interpreting. 
 The fact that He has done so proves that He 
 has appointed an authority to expound its 
 meaning. The very first words of the volume 
 may be taken in different significations, as 
 the same words when used by St. John in the 
 commencement of his Gospel. St. Paul is a 
 writer whose style is not alw r ays so clear as it 
 is sublime : the English philosopher Locke 
 (who is considered a man of brains) deckired 
 that he could not understand St. Paul. And 
 who can pretend to understand the prophecies, 
 or the book of the Apocalypse or Revela- 
 tions ? Open the sacred volume at random, 
 probably the first paragraph your eyes will 
 
26 The Bible. 
 
 fall on will be a mystery to your intelligence. 
 Consequently, thirdly, the Bible privately 
 interpreted, is a source of contradictions. 
 Protestants say, either that the Scripture is 
 clear of itself to reason alone, or that the 
 Spirit, that is, God the Holy Ghost, will en- 
 lighten the individual reader as to its mean- 
 ing. What has been the practical result, after 
 three hundred year's experience of the work- 
 ing of their system, whether explained by in- 
 dividual reason or by the private spirit ? 
 Confusion : the temple of Protestantism is a 
 tower of Babel. The result has been that, 
 outside of the Catholic Church, you will find 
 every one of the tenets held by Roman Ca- 
 tholics denied separately by different sects, 
 and every one of them (and they are nume- 
 rous) separately affirmed. This may be said 
 in particular of persons living in the Anglican 
 communion alone, which, on account of its 
 " comprehensiveness," to use an expression 
 adopted by its own dignitaries, seems to re- 
 sume all Protestantism as* in a compendium ; 
 
The Bible. 2 J 
 
 the " highest " of its members admit even the 
 supremacy of the Pope, its " broadest " mem- 
 bers can with difficulty be distinguished from 
 rank infidels. Yet we cannot ascribe this in- 
 finite variety of belief among Protestants to 
 insincerity : so sweeping an accusation against 
 millions of Christians would be extravagant. 
 The defect then is in their rule of faith. 
 
 Fourthly, this rule is destructive of Christ's 
 whole plan of His Church. (1.) Christ pro- 
 mised unity to His Church : he prayed to His 
 Father that it should be " one, as We are 
 one." What is these " one " among the Pro- 
 testant sects ? Nothing but their hostility to 
 the Catholic Church. On every other point 
 they disagree : they as little deserve to be 
 called united as did these States when the 
 South was battling against the North ; if Pro- 
 testantism be an empire, it is an empire in a 
 state of constitutional civil war. (2.) Christ 
 committed authority to His Church. He left 
 the commandment " to hear the Church," and 
 he who did. not do so, should be treated " as 
 
28 The Bible. 
 
 the heathen and the publican/' Therefore 
 the Church is called by the Apostle " the 
 pillar and the ground of- truth." Now in the 
 Protestant system, this commandment is im- 
 possible to be fulfilled ; there can be no obli- 
 gations to " hear " a Church " as the pillar 
 and ground of truth," wherein every one has 
 the right to interpret for himself, and wherein 
 there are as many divergences of opinion as 
 there are varieties of minds and dispositions. 
 (3.) Christ ordered His disciples to go and 
 preach the Gospel. " Go ye into the whole 
 world and preach the Gospel to every crea- 
 ture. " All power is given unto me in hea- 
 ven and on earth ; go ye therefore and teach 
 all nations!' " He that" hears and " believes 
 shall be saved : he that believes not shall be 
 condemned." " Behold I am with you all 
 ages even till the end of time." " He that 
 heareth you heareth me, and he that despiseth 
 you despiseth me, and despiseth Him that 
 me." Whence the Apostle concludes, " Faith 
 then cometh by hearing." " And they went 
 
The Bible. 29 
 
 and preached everywhere," and " their sound 
 hath gone forth unto all the earth, and their 
 words unto the ends of the whole world." 
 " And God hath indeed set some in the 
 Church, first apostles, secondly prophets, 
 thirdly teachers. — Are all Apostles ? are all 
 prophets ? are all teachers ?" (Cor. xii. 29.) 
 " He that knoweth God," says the Apostle 
 St. John, u heareth us : he that is not of God, 
 heareth us not : by this we know the spirit 
 of truth and the spirit of error." (1 Jn. iv. 6.) 
 And St. Paul writes to his disciple Timothy 
 to transmit to others this power of instructing : 
 " the things which thou hast heard of me by 
 many witnesses, the same commend to faith- 
 ful men, who shall be fit to teach others also." 
 (2 Tim. ii. 2.) Now, may I ask, what right 
 have Protestant ministers, I will not say to 
 preach, but to teach ? to preach so as to 
 teach ? as the Apostles did and their succes- 
 sors ? Where every one has the right to in- 
 terpret for himself, no one is bound to be 
 taught by another. (4.) Christ communicated 
 
30 The Bible. 
 
 indefectible infallibility to His Church. This 
 communication is distinctly signified in the 
 order of its founders and their successors, to 
 go and " preach," and the accompanying pro- 
 mise that He would be with them all days 
 even to the consummation of the world. For 
 Christ did not send his disciples to preach 
 anything but the truth, and the sense of this 
 promise of His presence is perpetual im- 
 munity from error. So it should be ; for God 
 must have appointed for Christians some 
 means of knowing certainly the truth. This 
 means is an infallible guide : none other can 
 give us certitude, which is necessary for im- 
 plicit belief. My reason is an infallible guide 
 in the things which it perceives : thus I know 
 infallibly that two and two can never make 
 more or less than four. The Spirit of God is 
 an infallible guide when it really does speak 
 to me. But what is infallible in the Protest- 
 ant system ? The Bible ? Yes, but the 
 Bible is a dead letter, which cannot explain 
 itself when understood in different ways, and 
 
The Bible. 31 
 
 the fact is that, whether interpreted by pri- 
 vate reason or by the private spirit, it has 
 been made to bear ten thousand contradictory 
 meanings. v Of what use is a guide to me 
 who will not brinor me out of the words ? 
 
 Fifthly, this rule is opposed (1.) to Christ's 
 love of order. For it destroys authority in 
 religion ; and Christ, who came to teach, 
 " not as the Scribes and Pharisees, but as 
 one having authority," the God of order and 
 subordination, who exacts submission to au- 
 thority in every human society established by 
 Him as the author of nature, in the family, in 
 civil society, could not assuredly have aban- 
 doned the order of divine worship which He 
 founded to the capricious interpretation of 
 every private individual judgment. God has 
 given free-will and liberty to all men, but in- 
 dependence He has granted to no one, and 
 in no order of things ; the stars, the tides, the 
 very winds of heaven obey fixed laws ; 
 throughout the whole animal, vegetable, and 
 mineral creation is to be found law, order, 
 
32 The Bible. 
 
 subjection, and dependence : it is contrary to 
 every sense of what is right and consistent to 
 suppose that in the awful question of religious 
 duty man should be abandoned to his own 
 recklessness, as though this question were a 
 matter not worthy of the providential care of 
 his Creator. (2.) It is opposed, consequently,, 
 to Christ's wisdom and consistency. (3.) It 
 is opposed to his foresight. The whole Bible 
 was not written till near the year 100 after 
 Christ, its different parts were not collected 
 together till the year 300, nor translated till 
 400, nor universally accepted in the Church, 
 as they now stand, till about the year 5oo. 
 What did the whole Christian world do until 
 then in order to know the truth ? And if the 
 Christian religion is to be learned only by the 
 reading of the Bible, and to be spread conse- 
 quently by the distribution of Bibles, how did 
 Christian missionaries do up to the year 
 1440, when printing was invented? They 
 propagated the faith ; they converted nations, 
 all Europe, a great part of Asia and of Africa. 
 
The Bible. 33 
 
 And since that time ? Not one people has 
 been converted by the Bible. The eternal 
 sterility of "Protestant missions, so often 
 thrown in the face of the Bible Societies by 
 travellers of their own creed, is a standing 
 reproach. The Church of England sends out 
 German Lutherans and Calvinists, who, as it 
 believes, have no mission, to scatter Bibles 
 broadcast and deliver up the sacred volume 
 to the pagan and scoffer, or rather invite 
 them to destroy it and abuse it in every vile 
 and profane manner, they worse than waste 
 millions of money without often the profit of 
 a single soul ; while the poor Roman Ca- 
 tholic missionary, by his teaching, example, 
 and labor, converts the heathen population 
 everywhere by thousands and tens of thous- 
 ands, laying down his life, if necessary, that 
 they may have the courage to make the 
 sacrifice of theirs ; and the history of the 
 Churches of Japan, of China, and of farther 
 India, during the last generation, shows too 
 abundantly how the Catholic Christians of 
 
34 The Bible. 
 
 those distant lands — and only they — have 
 been able to support the rattan, the fire, and 
 the executioner's axe, sooner than renounce 
 their faith in Jesus Christ. 
 
 And since the beginning of Christianity 
 down to the present time, how has it been 
 with all those numerous classes, those who 
 cannot read, little children, those who have 
 defective intelligence, the very dull of mind, 
 who nevertheless have been called and are 
 obliged to be Christians, those who have 
 not sufficient time, the great mass of mankind, 
 those who have never seen a Bible, and they 
 are many — how were they to be saved ? By 
 believing what it teaches, on the word of some 
 one who will explain it to them, if they should 
 be fortunate enough to find such a one ? But 
 this simply proves that the rule is an imprac- 
 ticable one ; for, besides the fact that these 
 persons do not read the Bible for themselves, 
 the Episcopalian and the Presbyterian, the 
 Unitarian and the Trinitarian, the Sacramen^ 
 tarian and the Evangelical, the High-Church^ 
 
The Bible. 35 
 
 man and the Low-Churchman, the Broad- 
 Churchman and the Narrow-Churchman, will 
 explain it to "them in different and opposite 
 ways. How then has the overwhelming ma- 
 jority of human-kind been able to work this 
 rule ? 
 
 Sixthly, this rule destroys not only unity of 
 belief, but constancy. Every Protestant sect 
 has always been changing. This was proved 
 by Bossuet, in his History of the Variations, 
 200 years ago ; a much more voluminous 
 work on the subject could be written now. 
 Luther changed his opinions many times ; so 
 did Wesley. Change is the essejtce of Protest- 
 autism. For the principle of Protestantism is 
 inquiry : it never pretends to possess the 
 truth : it admits that it may always be wrong ; 
 therefore Protestants are obliged always to be 
 ready to change ; therefore if the contrary of 
 what they believed yesterday appear to them 
 true to-day, they are obliged honestly to think 
 so — and if to-morrow they should discover 
 that what they to-day judge to be true is 
 
36 The Bible. 
 
 false, they are obliged to think so too — there- 
 fore they may be obliged in conscience to 
 abandon the certain truth (since what they 
 believed yesterday may have been the truth) 
 for that which certainly is false (since what 
 they sincerely believe to-day, they may dis- 
 cover to-morrow not to be the truth). There- 
 fore it is all mere opinion, without any certi- 
 tude whatever. 
 
 Therefore, seventhly, this rule destroys all 
 faith. A Protestant cannot make an act of 
 faith. How can he? since he is never sure 
 of what he believes, and, as I hope to be able 
 to show in the course of these lectures, as a 
 Protestant, he is not even certain of the Bible 
 on which he grounds his belief. Eighthly, it 
 renders impossible any criterion of faith. For 
 it resolves itself, after all, into mere individual 
 opinion ; so that there is no final arbiter of 
 controversies, but every one has the right, 
 and ought, to decide for himself, according to 
 his own private judgment, even though it be 
 
The Bible. 37 
 
 contrary to that which has always been the 
 belief of all the rest of mankind. To prove 
 that this is not an exaggeration, but a princi- 
 ple, of which Protestantism has furnished, in 
 its history, the practical application, let me 
 state one fact. Until the time of Calvin, no 
 one, except one man, Berengarius, who re- 
 tracted his opinion, had ever doubted that 
 these words, "This is my body," meant what 
 they literally signified : " This is my body." 
 In twenty-five years from the commencement 
 of the Reformation, two hundred interpreta- 
 tions had been found for these four words, 
 " This is my body," all different from one 
 another, bu.t all meaning: "This is not my 
 body." Ninthly, it destroys the very object 
 of a church ; since every man can be a church 
 for himself. What need is there of an organ- 
 ization, what need of teachers or of temples, 
 if every man can, nay, is bound, to inter- 
 pret for himself, to teach himself? It destroys 
 the very hope or possibility of a church : you 
 
38 The Bible. 
 
 might as well endeavor to make all men of 
 one mind in politics, as hope to see them 
 come to agree in religion, if the matter is left 
 to their own private reasoning. 
 
 Tenthly, this rule destroys the sanctity of 
 the Christian religion, as inculcated by Jesus 
 Christ, by pandering to the pride, self-will, 
 presumption, and pertinacity of man. All the 
 life and teachings of Jesus Christ were a les- 
 son of humility, submission and self-denial : 
 this rule is adapted to flatter the conceit of 
 every old doating woman, crazy girl, and silly 
 young man, who chooses to rave on religion, 
 4 'speaking swelling words of vanity, fountains 
 without water, and clouds tossed with whirl- 
 wind," (2 Pet. ii. 17.) And, eleventhly and 
 finally, it destroys the very essential character 
 of religion, which, by its own nature, and from 
 the nature of man, and the exigencies of his 
 nature is traditional, taught by the father to 
 his son, and so handed down from generation 
 to generation. Thus religion was preserved 
 
The Bible. 39 
 
 before the patriarchs ; so it was preserved 
 among the Jewish people, and during their 
 captivity ; so it must have been propagated 
 in the early period of Christianity, as we have 
 seen ; and so it was maintained throughout 
 Christendom during the so-called ages of cor- 
 ruption, till the Reformation. And the chil- 
 dren of the Reformation ? So do they hand 
 it down traditionally, teaching it to their chil- 
 dren as they were taught themselves, because 
 they cannot practically refuse to obey an in- 
 stinct, which their reason and good sense, 
 more powerful than their theoretical rule, tell 
 them is the voice of duty. They are practi- 
 cally illogical, because their rule is practically 
 absurd. And fortunately they do not leave it 
 wholly to the child to determine from the 
 Bible what shall be his belief and religious 
 practice ; the Bible would remain unstudied. 
 Better it were never opened, than to be open- 
 ed, as it is, by prurient boys and girls to find 
 food therein with which to satisfy the cravings 
 
40 The Bible. 
 
 of a premature appetite and indulge the mor- 
 bid curiosity of a petulant imagination. 
 
 This will suffice for to-night. If, in urging 
 any argument, any of my expressions may 
 have appeared to be severe, I beg you to 
 think that I wish only to give my reasoning 
 its full force, not to offend the sympathies of 
 those whom I believe to be in error, but 
 whom I also believe to have embraced this 
 error only in the sincere apprehension that it 
 was the truth. 
 
 It may be asked, How does the Church es- 
 tablish her authority? since she is the final 
 arbiter to whom Catholics are allowed to ap- 
 peal. I answer : the Church, first, asserts her 
 right to be heard and obeyed ; she presents 
 herself among men as the ambassador of God, 
 and — offers her credentials. These creden- 
 tials are what we call her marks of credibility, 
 and, if we find them to be perfectly in order, 
 we are bound to recognize her as that which 
 
The Bible. 41 
 
 she declares herself to be — the Minister of 
 Heaven. In a" future lecture, we shall inquire 
 what signs the Church should possess in 
 order to make good her right to our submis- 
 sion, and, secondly, whether the Roman Ca- 
 tholic Communion, and it only, enjoys the 
 possession of these characteristic signs. But 
 I have more to say about the Bible. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 The Bible. 
 
 In commencing this lecture, allow me to 
 repeat what I said last Sunday evening, that 
 if any expression uttered in the course of 
 this reading should appear harsh in itself, my 
 intention is, not to give offence, but simply 
 to draw out the strict logical deductions of 
 my argument, in order that it may be shown 
 in its full strength. 
 
 According to the Protestant principle that 
 the Bible alone is the rule of faith, every 
 man, woman and child, is obliged strictly : — 
 ist, to read the whole Bible — and collate its 
 parts ; 2dly, to be convinced he understands 
 it all. I say he is obliged to read it and un- 
 derstand it. For there is question here of 
 the most vital matter of fact ; what is it that 
 God has revealed to man and which He wills 
 
The Bible. 43 
 
 him to believed Before the bar of Omnipo- 
 tent Justice, it will never do to say that, after 
 a cursory examination, we had formed a prob- 
 able opinion, there where we were bound to 
 study till we had discovered the certain truth : 
 our duty here is at least as stringent as in 
 less important worldly matters. Now unless 
 we read and collate the whole of Scripture, 
 we cannot be satisfied that we have obtained 
 the precise sehse of it, on all important mat- 
 ters. I ask of you, then, is this a practical 
 rule, such as God would appoint, who always 
 adapts His providence to the weakness of hu- 
 man nature, as it actually exists ? For how 
 many persons are able to — how many really 
 do, whether able or not, read the Bible thus 
 
 carefully ? And understand it. The Bible 
 
 must be clear indeed, if all can understand it. 
 Is it thus clear ? First, no text of the Bible 
 (which is the only Protestant authority on the 
 matter), as we have already said, tells us so. 
 Secondly, St. Peter tells us expressly the 
 contrary, both in general terms, and when 
 
44 The Bible. 
 
 speaking in particular of the writings of St. 
 Paul. " Understanding this first," he says, 
 " that no prophecy of Scripture is made by 
 private interpretation," (2 Pet. i. 20.) " In all 
 his (Paul's) epistles . . . are some things hard 
 to be understood, which the unlearned and 
 the unstable wrest, as also the other Scrip- 
 tures, to their own perdition. You therefore, 
 knowing these things before, beware, &c.," (2 
 Pet. hi. 16.) And how does St. Paul himself 
 speak on this subject ? " And some indeed 
 He gave to be apostles, and some prophets, 
 and others evangelists, and others pastors 
 and teachers," (Eph. iv. ii.) " Are all teach- 
 ers ? .... do all interpret ?" he asks in his 
 epistle to the Corinthians, (1 Cor. xii. 27, 31.) 
 The prophet David called on God for light to 
 understand His law, and St. Augustin declared 
 there were many more things in the Scrip- 
 ture which he did not understand than things 
 he understood. " How can I understand 
 unless some man show me ?" exclaimed the 
 eunuch of Ethiopia to the Apostle Philip, 
 
The Bible. 45 
 
 being enlightened by the Holy Ghost as to 
 his own ignorance and inability to interpret 
 the prophecies concerning the Christ (Acts, 
 viii.) Yet what those great and holy person- 
 ages did not dare to believe of themselves, 
 we are told that every uneducated, hard- 
 headed, weak-minded, even stupid man, or 
 woman, must think of his or her capacity. 
 
 Protestants did not invent this theory of 
 appealing to the Bible : it is as old as heresy. 
 And the consequences in the time of the old 
 heresies were the same confusion which is 
 the result of its adoption in modern days. 
 Allow me to quote a few passages from the 
 early Fathers, in proof of this parallel, and to 
 show in what consideration they held this 
 rule. i. St. Vincent of Lerins : " But some 
 perhaps may ask : — The Canon of the holy 
 books being perfect and more than sufficient 
 for itself, why should the authority of the 
 Church be joined to it ? — I answer : Because 
 the Scripture, having a sublime sense, is 
 differently expounded. By one person it is 
 
46 The Bible. 
 
 interpreted in one sense, by a second person 
 in another sense ; so that there are almost 
 as many opinions about its meaning as there 
 are persons. Novatian, Sabellius, Donatus, 
 Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, Apollinaris, 
 Priscillian, Jovinianus, Pelagius, Celestius, and 
 finally Nestorius, admit no common interpre- 
 tation. It is therefore wholly necessary, on 
 account of so many subtle evasions, to take 
 the sense of the Catholic Church for our rule." 
 (Comm. . . n. 11.) 
 
 Origin : " As often as heretics produce the 
 Canonical scripture in which every Christian 
 agrees and believes, they seem to say, Lo! 
 with us is the word of truth. But we cannot 
 
 give them credit He who reading the 
 
 Gospel, applies to it his own interpretation, 
 not understanding it as the Lord spoke it, 
 truly he is a false prophet, uttering words 
 from his own mind. These words may fairly 
 be understood of heretics ; for they apply 
 their own fables to the Gospel, and the writ- 
 ings of the Apostles, expounding by their 
 
The Bible. 47 
 
 own judgment, and not according to the sense 
 of the holy Spirit." 
 
 St. Irenaeus : " Not only from the evangeli- 
 cal and apostolical writings, (that is, the New 
 Testament) which they perversely interpret 
 and wickedly expound, do these (heretics) 
 attempt to prove their assertions, but also 
 from the law and the prophets (that is, the 
 Old Testament also). . . . They boast their 
 own superior knowledge and attempt to make 
 it seem credible, forming, as it were, a rope 
 of sand, by adducing some words from the 
 parables or sayings of the prophets, or of 
 Christ, or of the Apostles ; but so as to vio- 
 late the arrangement and order of the sacred 
 writings, and, as far as in them lies, dissolve 
 the whole connection of truth. . . . When they 
 shall be agreed among themselves on what 
 they draw from the Scriptures, it will be our 
 time to refute them." 
 
 St. Clement of Alexandria : " They (the 
 heretics) make use indeed of the Scriptures ; 
 but then they use not all the sacred books ; 
 
48 The Bible. 
 
 those they use are corrupted ; or they chiefly 
 urge ambiguous passages. . . opposing the di- 
 vine tradition by human doctrines. . . . But it 
 is clear that there is only one true church, the 
 ancient one, as there is but one God and one 
 Lord," 
 
 Tertullian : " We are not allowed to in- 
 dulge our own humor, nor to choose what 
 another has invented. . . . What will you gain 
 by recurring to Scripture, when one denies 
 what the other asserts ? Learn rather who 
 it is that possesses the faith of Christ ; to 
 whom the Scriptures belong : from whom, 
 and by whom, and when, that faith was de- 
 livered by which we are made Christians. 
 For where shall be found the true faith, there 
 will be the genuine Scriptures. . . . Where 
 this diversity of doctrine is, there will the 
 Scriptures and the expounding of them be 
 adulterated. . . . What Valentinus might do, 
 that might his followers ; that is, change their 
 belief as they liked. In one word, view nar- 
 rowly all those heresies, and you will find 
 
The Bible. 49 
 
 that in many things they differ from their 
 founders. . . . To the Scriptures therefore an 
 appeal must not be made." 
 
 St. Cyril of Jerusalem : " Hold fast to that 
 faith which the Church alone teaches, confirm- 
 ed as it is by all the Scriptures. For as all 
 persons are not able to read those scriptures, 
 and some from ignorance, some from occupa- 
 tion, are withheld from acquiring knowledge ; 
 that thou mayest not through ignorance lose 
 thy soul, we have comprised, in a few lines, 
 the sum of Christian doctrine." — Catechism. 
 
 St, Cyprian : " Corrupting the gospel and 
 interpreting falsely, they take the last words 
 and omit what goes before, retaining one part 
 and craftily suppressing the other. As they 
 are cut off from the Church, so do they cut 
 
 off the words of Scripture Can two or 
 
 three be gathered together in the name of 
 Christ, who, it is plain, are separated from 
 Him and His gospel ? For we did not leave 
 them, but they us ; they quitted the head and 
 fountain of truth." 
 
5o The Bible. 
 
 St. Hilary : " When once they began (the 
 Arians) to make new confessions of faith, be- 
 lief became the creed of the times rather than 
 of the Gospels. Every year new creeds were 
 made, and men did not keep to that simplicity 
 of faith, which they professed at their baptism. 
 And then what miseries ensued ! For soon 
 there came to be as many creeds as there 
 were parties, and nothing else has been mind- 
 ed, since the Council of Nice, but this creed- 
 making. New creeds have come forth every 
 year and every month'' — one would imagine 
 Bossuet writing the history of the Variations 
 of Protestantism. — <l They have changed, have 
 been anathematized, and then re-established; 
 and thus by too much inquiring into the faith, 
 there is no faith left. Recollect that there is 
 not one of these heretics who does not now 
 impudently assert that all his blasphemies are 
 derived from the Scriptures. They all urge 
 the Scriptures without any knowledge of 
 them, and without faith, talk of their faith. 
 For it is not by reading, but by comprehend- 
 
The Bible. 5 1 
 
 ing their sense, that the Scriptures should be 
 weighed. . . . Christ (teaching from the ship) 
 intimates that they who are out of the Church, 
 can possess no understanding of the divine 
 word. For the ship is an emblem of the 
 Church, within which as the Word of Life is 
 placed and preached, so they who are without, 
 being as barren and useless sands, cannot un- 
 derstand it." 
 
 St. Gregory Nazianzen : " We must not all 
 exercise the office of the tongue, which is the 
 most prompt and ready member ; for all are 
 not apostles, nor prophets, nor expounders. 
 To teach is great and eminent ; but to learn 
 is void of danger. You that are a sheep, why 
 do you arrogate the function of the shepherd ? 
 Being the foot, why will you be the head ? . . . 
 Truly there should have been a law among 
 us, whereby — as among the Jews young men 
 were not allowed to read certain books of the 
 Scripture — not all men, and at all times, but 
 certain persons only, and on certain occasions, 
 should be permitted to discuss the points of 
 
52 The Bible. 
 
 faith. ... If these heretics may freely teach 
 and promulgate their opinions, who does not 
 see that the doctrine of the Church will be 
 condemned, as if the truth were on their side ? 
 But two opposite doctrines on the same point 
 cannot possibly be true." 
 
 Here it is well to remark that all the her- 
 esies and heretical opinions of those early 
 times were condemned by the Reformers and 
 their followers, full as much as they were con- 
 demned by these Fathers. 
 
 Let me conclude with a few brief sentences 
 from St. Augustin, and one extract from St. 
 Jerome. St. Augustin : "If every art, how- 
 ever low and easy of attainment, nevertheless, 
 in order to be acquired, demands a teacher ; 
 what can be more arrogant than not to be 
 willing to learn those books of divine myste- 
 ries from their proper interpreters ? . . . Her- 
 esies have not arisen, nor certain pernicious 
 doctrines, but from the holy Scriptures being 
 ill understood, and when rash and bold asser- 
 tion has been the consequence. . . . No one 
 
The Bible. 53 
 
 can, certainly, attribute to the sacred writings, 
 the various errors of the heretics, though they 
 all endeavor to rest their false and fallacious 
 opinions on that authority. . . . Whence came 
 Donatus ? From what country did he spring ? 
 Out of what sea did he rise ? From what sky 
 did he descend ? . . . Hold fast to the Catholic 
 Church ; do not depart from the rule of truth, 
 and thou shalt be protected in the Tabernacle 
 from the contradiction of tongues. . . . Unless 
 the authority of this Church induced me to it, 
 I would not believe the Gospel." 
 
 St. Jerome : " That you may be convinced 
 how necessary a guide is when you enter on 
 the study of the Scriptures, " (let us reflect,) 
 " I say nothing of grammarians, rhetoricians, 
 philosophers, and other learned professions — 
 to speak only of menial arts, which are 
 learned, not by reading, but by mere prac- 
 tice ; in all these, nevertheless, there must be 
 some one to show the way. The art of un- 
 derstanding the Scripture alone is open to 
 every reader! Here, learned or unlearned, 
 
54 The Bible. 
 
 we can all interpret. The tattling old woman, 
 the doating old man, the wordy sophist, all 
 here presume : they tear texts to pieces, and 
 dare to become teachers before they have 
 been taught. Some, you may see, surrounded 
 by a female circle, weighing out with pom- 
 pous brow their solemn phrases, and discuss- 
 ing the import of the sacred oracles ; while 
 others, oh shame ! are taking lessons from 
 the women that they may be able to instruct 
 the men. — Not to speak of those who com- 
 ing to the study of the holy Scriptures from 
 profane authors and the exercise of worldly 
 eloquence, vainly fancy all they utter to be 
 the law of God, and do not dgign to learn 
 what the prophets and the apostles had 
 in their mind. In support of their own 
 conceptions they adduce incongruous proofs, 
 not aware that to distort sentences and to 
 force the reluctant Scripture to bend to 
 their own wishes, argues not a superior 
 understanding, but is a mode of teaching 
 the most faulty. . . . The assembly of the 
 
^The Bible. 55 
 
 one Church has but one faith, nor is she 
 defiled by a variety of doctrines, nor rent 
 asunder by heresies : she remains a virgin." 
 These texts suffice : it is certain that the 
 early heretics appealed to Scripture ; and 
 that, on the strength of that appeal, they sub- 
 divided ; and that, in view of these divisions, 
 the Fathers recommended them to appeal 
 rather to the Church for knowledge. " We 
 are of God," says St. John, " he that knoweth 
 God, heareth us." Those who refuse to do 
 so, who will not " hear the Church,'* nor the 
 priests of the Church, whose lips "shall keep 
 knowledge, and from whose mouth they shall 
 require the law," are in the eyes of these 
 Fathers only objects of blame or of pity. 
 And indeed to abandon the Bible and its 
 sacred text thus to be " torn to pieces," ac- 
 cording to the words of St. Jerome, would it 
 not really be casting the holy thing to dogs 
 and pearls to swine ? as literally it has been 
 gathered in by the avid Chinese to make 
 soles for slippers or lining for their tea-chests. 
 
56 The Bible. 
 
 Thirdly, the Bible-reader must be sure of 
 his translations, for there are many different 
 readings of the Bible-text, and several books 
 have been rejected by different sects. There- 
 fore, fourthly, he should be acquainted with 
 the critical value of each book and text ; he 
 should be well-grounded on the controversy 
 concerning the two Canons ; in fact, he 
 should know the whole history of the volume. 
 Therefore, fifthly, before forming his code 
 and act of faith, he should make himself fami- 
 liar with the original languages in which this 
 work was written, the Greek, the Hebrew, 
 and the Syro-Chaldaic. 
 
 The first translations of the Reformers were 
 notoriously erroneous. In Luther's transla- 
 tion of the New Testament alone, i ,400 cor- 
 ruptions of the text were pointed out ; not 
 only did he alter and omit, but he even add- 
 ed to the text. All the Reformers mutually 
 abused each other on this account. In Henry 
 VIII.'s translation, 2,000 corrupt readings 
 were pointed out in the New Testament 
 
The Bible. 5j 
 
 alone. Queen Elizabeth's was not much bet- 
 ter. Finally, the elder Disraeli (father of the 
 Right Honorable Benjamin) thus stigmatizes 
 the translations made in England previous to 
 the year 1660: " Our English (Protestant) 
 Bibles were suffered to be so corrupted that 
 no book ever swarmed with such innumerable 
 errata. These errata unquestionably were, 
 in great part, voluntary omissions, passages 
 interpolated, and meanings forged for certain 
 purposes," (Curiosities of Literature.) The 
 present English Bible is, or may be admitted 
 to be, tolerable enough for accuracy ; and yet, 
 after having made an idol of this book for 
 two hundred years, behold to-day all England 
 risen up against it, as the old Hebrews used 
 to turn against their false gods when they got 
 tired of them, and declaring that it is a failure, 
 that it was ill-done and coarsely-wrought, a 
 shame and disgrace to their Church, that it 
 must be revised, that it must be torn up and 
 destroyed, and another idol put upon its ped- 
 estal. Quite recently the actual Bishop of 
 
58 The Bible. 
 
 Gloucester in England named in convocation 
 several instances, in which " deviations from 
 faithfulness are to be found" in it, — a mild 
 way of saying that it was intentionally cor- 
 rupted. But the translations for foreign and 
 heathen nations are absurdly inaccurate. An 
 Irish translation was made in which 35 varia- 
 tions were discovered in the first ten pages. 
 The translator of the New Testament into 
 Chinese wrote, a year afterwards, that the 
 Dictionary in which he was engaged " would 
 gradually mature his knowledge of Chinese !" 
 What kind of a translation was that man ca- 
 pable of making? Yet here was the book 
 which 400,000,000 of Pagans were to take on 
 the ipse dixit of the publisher to be the in- 
 spired word of God. I shall not speak here 
 of the value of the Catholic translation, which 
 every one admits to be the most correct. We 
 accept our translation because it is approved 
 by the Church ; but every Protestant must 
 find out for himself the worth of the book he 
 reads. 
 
The Bible. 59 
 
 He must also settle in his own mind wheth- 
 er all the books, and all parts of the books in 
 the Bible, have an equal authority or not. 
 The 6th Article of Religion of the Church of 
 England says, that " in the name of the holy 
 Scripture we do understand those canonical 
 books of the Old and New Testament, of 
 whose authority there was never any doubt 
 in the Church ; " and it enumerates the books 
 of the Old Testament, according to the Jew- 
 ish division of proto- and deutero- canonical, 
 denying to these last inspiration and authori- 
 ty in matters of faith, and then all the books 
 of the New Testament, in the order in which 
 we have them. Now, see, what a gratuitous 
 assumption is here contained in the first 
 place ! Because there have been doubts as to 
 the authenticity or inspiration of a book, does 
 it follow therefore that we can deny its authen- 
 ticity and inspiration ? What follows is, 
 that, since these books contain many things, 
 every Protestant must determine for himself 
 whether they have authority or not, so as to 
 
60 The Bible. 
 
 oblige him to believe what they say ? Con- 
 sider, secondly, the implied misstatement 
 of fact. Whatever obscurity there may be 
 about the question of the deutero-canonical 
 books, the fact is that the Church never did 
 doubt of their inspiration; the Apostles in 
 their writings quoted from them, as well as 
 from the proto-canonical books ; they were 
 received as inspired by the Greek and Alex- 
 andrian Jews, and by the ancient heretics and 
 modern Greek schismatics ; and if the an- 
 cient Jews did not insert them in their canon, 
 the reason was, according to Josephus, that 
 through respect for Esdras, who had drawn 
 up the first canon, they awaited the coming 
 of another prophet, that is, the Messiah, be- 
 fore adding any books to that list. Thirdly, 
 remark the inconsistency. The English 
 Church admits all the books of the New Tes- 
 tament ; now, up to the 4th or 5th centuries, 
 there were grave doubts in the Church as to 
 the inspiration and authenticity of some of 
 these, and several others were considered by 
 
The Bible. * 61 
 
 many during that period as inspired, which 
 have since been rejected. After the breaking 
 out of the Reformation, Luther again and 
 the other Reformers discarded several of 
 these books. He threw away the book of 
 Revelations or Apocalypse, the epistle to the 
 Hebrews, and the epistle of St. James — 
 which he called an epistle of straw, for the 
 reason that it denied his favorite theory of 
 justification by faith alone, to maintain which 
 he inserted the word " alone" after the word 
 faith in the epistle of St. Paul to the Ro- 
 mans, and, when accused of having done so, 
 his answer was : " So I will, so I command. 
 Let my will be instead of reason. Luther 
 will have it so." Here now is a pretty knot- 
 ty point, which every Protestant must clear 
 up for himself before setting to read the 
 Scripture ; for, if the decision of the Church 
 does not appear to him to be invested with 
 sufficient authority by God to make him cer- 
 tain about it, it is scarcely probable that the 
 voice even of Martin Luther, or the Articles 
 
62 The Bible. 
 
 of the Church of England, will suffice to put 
 his mind at rest. 
 
 But suppose the Protestant reader has 
 settled to his own satisfaction the question of 
 the authority of the different books and all 
 the parts of them, and is quite at ease as to 
 the fidelity of his own vernacular translation, 
 there is an anterior question still, which he 
 must solve before being able to apply his 
 rule of faith. This question is the non-cor- 
 ruption and integrity of the original text. In 
 the original mannscripts, written in a variety 
 of different languages, there are a great many 
 different readings ; for example, the famous 
 controverted text, of so great importance in 
 proving the existence of the Blessed Trinity. 
 " There are three who give testimony in 
 heaven, " is found in some manuscripts, in 
 others it is not. Again, in other parts, have 
 we the text entire and complete ? is there no 
 break, nothing omitted, which may change 
 the whole sense and meaning of the passage ? 
 The authors of the extant portion of the Old 
 
The Bible. 63 
 
 Testament tell us of a great many books 
 which are lost, — it has been calculated, as 
 many as twenty — which were probably in- 
 spired. Strange, by the way, if the written 
 books are to be our rule of faith, that God 
 should not have preserved what he deemed 
 necessary to complete His revelation, and 
 without which His law cannot be wholly 
 known ! He then who admits the private 
 reading of the Bible as his only means for 
 knowing the word of God, must enter upon 
 all this study, if he wishes to build his act of 
 faith on a solid foundation, that is, his own 
 personal certitude, and not on the faith of cri- 
 tics or translators, on a mere probability and 
 chance. For he who will not admit the au- 
 thority of the Church, cannot receive that of 
 man. What a prospect opens before him ! 
 
 But the most important point remains yet 
 to be settled. Sixthly, then, and finally, he 
 must be certain of its inspiration. I have my 
 Bible, and I understand it : how do I know 
 that it is inspired ? There are 46 books of 
 
64 The Bible. 
 
 the Old Testament, and 27 in the New, written 
 at different intervals, during the space of 1600 
 years. How am I to know that each one of 
 these books was inspired ? By the nature ot 
 the things related in them ? Niebuhr, the 
 German critic, has destroyed the fine edifice 
 of early Roman history left to us by Titus 
 Livy, far more creditable, on the face of it, 
 than are many things related by the writers 
 of the sacred books. These would long ago 
 have lost all credence, without waiting for a 
 Colenso or a Renan, had they nothing but 
 the intrinsic evidence of truth to support 
 them. Is it by the style of the writers ? their 
 sentiments, their piety ? How many works 
 of modern authors there are, full as devout, 
 as elevated in thought, as some of these 
 writings, which no one ever dreamed of call- 
 ing inspired ! That wonderful book, the 
 Following of Christ, which is the consolation 
 of so many millions, does it not bear as stroug 
 intrinsic marks of being inspired, as, say, the 
 Book of Chronicles, or the Book of Ruth, or 
 
The Bible. 65 
 
 Paul's Epistle to Philemon ? Is it on account 
 of the character of the writers ? Learned 
 Protestant divines have excluded the Gospels 
 of Sts. Mark and Luke, because they were 
 not apostles, but only disciples of the apostles ; 
 and they have asked, if you admit inspiration 
 in the writings of the disciples, why should 
 St. Barnabas' epistle be denied it ? But then 
 tvhst becomes of the rule of faith, if the writ- 
 ings of the apostles are ipso facto inspired, 
 and they only are inspired ? For it is cer- 
 tain that we have lost many of their letters, 
 of St. Peter's, for instance, only to speak of 
 him ; St. Peter spent seven years at Antioch, 
 and twenty-five at Rome, and did he write 
 only two letters ? for we have remaining of 
 him only two letters. Why also in that case 
 do we reject the Gospels of Sts. Thomas and 
 Bartholomew, who were apostles, when we 
 receive those of Luke and Mark ? why re- 
 ceive Paul's letter to the Romans (who no- 
 where says that he wrote to the Romans) 
 and reject that bearing his name to the 
 
66 The Bible. 
 
 Laodiceans ? Any such rule, it is plain, is 
 altogether arbitray, and every rule adopted 
 by Protestants for judging of inspiration, is 
 arbitrary. 
 
 I will tell you, my dear friends, whence you 
 have derived your belief in the inspiration of 
 holy Scriptures, from the tradition of the 
 Roman Catholic Church, from nowhere else. 
 If she had not given them to you, you would 
 not even have known them. She alone has 
 kept them by the care of her monks and 
 learned men. She alone has given you the 
 authentic translation of them. She alone has 
 furnished you with the list of the truly in- 
 spired books, dismissing those which were 
 apocryphal ; and on Her evidence and testi- 
 mony alone — it is impossible to assign any 
 other reasonable motive — do you believe that 
 they are inspired. The eminent and learned 
 Cardinal Wiseman did not fear publicly to 
 say that " having perused, with great atten- 
 tion, all that has fallen in my way from Pro- 
 testant writers on this subject (of inspiration), 
 
The Bible. 67 
 
 I have hardly found one single argument ad- 
 vanced by them that is not logically incorrect, 
 so that if I had not higher grounds on which 
 to rest my belief, they could not have led me 
 to adopt it. 
 
 This higher ground is the authority of the 
 Catholic Church, without which, says St. Au- 
 gustin, I would not believe even in the Gos- 
 pel, " Ego vero Evangelio non crederem, nisi 
 nee Catholicae Ecclesise commoveretautoritas. ,, 
 And how could he ? Even the tradition, the 
 historical testimony of the Church, does not 
 suffice to make us believe in inspiration. If 
 the affirmation of the Church have only a hu- 
 man authority, it establishes certainly indeed 
 the authorship of these books, their integrity 
 and correct preservation, and it satisfies the 
 historical critic of the truth of the facts related 
 in them. But Inspiration is an interior thing, 
 an invisible action of the Spirit of God on the 
 mind and hand of the writer, a secret dicta- 
 tion by which he is urged to write, perhaps 
 without being- conscious of the fact himself, 
 
68 The Bible. 
 
 and directed in what he writes, so that he be- 
 comes an instrument rather than an author, 
 and the production finally of his pen is not 
 his own invention but the very word of God. 
 Now this invisible action above and beyond 
 the range of human eye or thought, no one 
 can witness to but God Himself, and it is on 
 the word of God Himself alone that we can 
 believe it to have existed — a word, a witness, 
 preceding intellectually, logically, the exist- 
 ence of the Bible as an inspired book. This 
 word, this witness, this authority, preceding 
 every other in the order of Christian know- 
 ledge and instruction, is the basis, the first 
 foundation of all Christian faith. This word 
 of God, this Voice of God, telling us the Bible 
 is inspired, which unless we hear and believe, 
 we cannot, at least logically, and above all su- 
 pernaturally, believe the Bible to be inspired, 
 where is it? what is it? You have heard it; 
 for you believe the Bible to be an inspired 
 book. But you accept the Bible as such only 
 on the authority of the old Catholic Apostoli- 
 
The Bible. 69 
 
 cal and universal Church. The authority then 
 of that old ever-lasting Church, is for you, as 
 for me, the basis, the solid foundation of your 
 belief, the instrument through which God 
 speaks, the Voice of God. The authority of 
 the Church of God, built on a rock, is finally, 
 for you, for me, and for every Bible Christian, 
 his first, his only Rule of Faith. 
 
 Notwithstanding the Protestant principle 
 the Bible is the rule of faith, as its unlimited 
 private interpretation was found to lead only 
 to infinite division, every denomination has 
 felt it necessary to adopt some certain formu- 
 lary or profession or confession of faith, to 
 which its members and ministers are obliged 
 to subscribe, and those who refuse to do so, 
 become thereby another sect. Thus the 
 Church of England agreed on 39 Articles of 
 religion : now, to speak only of these — for the 
 same thing could be said of the other formu- 
 laries — whether they be articles "of faith," or 
 articles "of peace," as they have been called, 
 
Jo The Bible. 
 
 they are put down either as facts which the 
 individual reader of the Bible has no right to 
 controvert, or as a compromise. If as facts, 
 then there is an end to private interpretation, 
 and we have the Catholic rule that the autho- 
 rity of the Church is to be our guide and di- 
 rector. If as a compromise, a compromise 
 between whom and what ? Between truth and 
 error ? between Christ and Anti-christ ? But 
 " what concord hath Christ with Belial ? or 
 what part hath the faithful with the unbeliev- 
 er ? And what agreement hath the temple of 
 God with idols ? What participation hath 
 justice with injustice ? or what fellowship hath 
 light with darkness ?" The Church of Christ 
 can hear of no compromise. 
 
 This necessity for coming to an understand- 
 ing led to the famous distinction of fundamen- 
 tals and non-fundamentals. To keep them- 
 selves from dissolution, while depending on 
 the Scripture alone for authority and light, 
 and at the same time, to frame some answer 
 against the Catholic controvertists who were 
 
The Bible. 7 1 
 
 constantly casting up to them their innumera- 
 ble divisions, so opposed to that unity which 
 the Saviour had promised to His Church, the 
 leaders of the Reform declared that it was re- 
 quired only of all Christians to agree on the 
 fundamental points of the Christian religion, 
 and that these only were all sufficiently clearly 
 expressed in Scripture. Now, not to speak 
 of the injury thus offered to the written Word, 
 as though everything proceeding from the 
 mouth of God did not deserve the implicit 
 homage of our belief, or could have been re- 
 vealed by Him, the Lord of Majesty, except 
 with the supreme design, whatever apparently 
 unimportant point it might regard, since, after 
 all, it was revealed, of being expressly, uncon- 
 trovertedly, and unhesitatingly believed, on 
 His authority, by man — not to speak of this, 
 who gave these gentlemen the right to deter- 
 mine between fundamental and non-funda- 
 mental points ? Where was their Scripture 
 warrant for it ? There is no word about such 
 distinction in the holy writ. 
 
72 The Bible. 
 
 Perhaps it may sound plausible and satis- 
 factory enough, at least to perplexed or un- 
 reflecting persons, to say : All the essential 
 points of the Christian religion are sufficiently 
 clear. To know whether such is really the 
 case, however, two questions must be pre- 
 viously decided ; first, which are the essential 
 articles of religion, and, secondly, whether all 
 those who admit this distinction are agreed 
 as to these articles. Here again I may ask, 
 who has the right, not admitting the authority 
 of the Church in the matter, to determine 
 what are essential and fundamental points of 
 faith, and what are not ? The fact is how- 
 ever that, to this day, no common under- 
 standing has been come to on the subject. 
 The Episcopalian thinks that the distinction 
 between the order of bishops and the order 
 of priests is fundamental ; the Presbyterian 
 thinks that it is not, or, rather, that the con- 
 fusion of the two is fundamental. The Trini- 
 tarian holds assuredly the belief in the dis- 
 tinction of three persons in one God to be 
 
The Bible. 73 
 
 fundamental ; the Unitarian holds that it is 
 not, and, on the contrary, that the unity of 
 person is ; the one maintains the divinity 
 of Jesus Christ ; the other reduces him to 
 the mere rank of a creature. Is it essential 
 or not, to know whether there are sacraments 
 in the Church, and how many there are, and 
 what their nature is, whether they be mere 
 exterior signs and ceremonies, or instruments 
 of supernatural grace ? whether any sacra- 
 ment be necessary to salvation ? whether 
 salvation be possible out of the Church of 
 Christ ? — whether it be a sin, and, if not a 
 sin, whether it be profitable or not, to honor 
 and invoke the Blessed Virgin and the Saints? 
 whether these four words, "This is my body," 
 really mean what they literally signify, and 
 are held to mean by the Roman, Greek, and 
 Lutheran churches, or whether they imply 
 the direct contrary " This is not my body ?" 
 whether these words have a clear and funda- 
 mental signification for us in Scripture, " All 
 things whatsoever they shall tell you, observe 
 
74- The Bible. 
 
 ye and do," and " An heretical man avoid ?" 
 whether, finally, diversity of opinion in what 
 are called non-essentials be not an obstacle, 
 and uniformity in some things which may 
 appear unimportant be not a necessary con- 
 dition to salvation ? — for, after all, the Roman 
 Catholic Church, containing 200,000,000, the 
 half, at least of the Christian world, with the 
 Greek Church, a very large body also, aftirms 
 that it is, while only the Protestant division, 
 quite a minority, denies it. Who will decide 
 these questions ? 
 
 In the same communion, among those who 
 have embraced the same profession of faith, 
 you will find every variety of opinion as to 
 what is fundamental. Thus in the Church of 
 England — I specify the Church of England, 
 because it is the Protestant body with which 
 we are all best acquainted — some maintain 
 that baptism is necessary to salvation, others 
 that it is not, — these parties are now about 
 equally divided ; some teach that the minis- 
 ters of the Gospel have received a sacred 
 
The Bible. 75 
 
 character and exercise priestly functions, and 
 others that they are jn no way distinguished 
 from the rest of men ; some believe in the 
 power of absolution, the Real Presence of 
 Christ in the Communion, others reject these 
 doctrines violently. " For this " (admittance 
 to her communion) " she " (the established 
 Church, "requires only belief in the Apostles' 
 Creed," says Dr. Pusey. The dean of West- 
 minster and the new bishop of Exeter would 
 probably be far from allowing that she re- 
 quired so much. The Master of the Rolls, in 
 a late legal decision, declared that all that 
 was necessary in order to possess a living in 
 the Church of England, w T as not to deny the 
 supremacy of the Queen. The national 
 French Protestant synod of Charenton in 
 1631, admitted to the Calvinistic communion 
 the Lutheran protestants, who believed in 
 the Real Presence of Christ in the sacrament, 
 which the Calvinists denied. The synod of 
 Dordrecht in Holland, also Calvinistic, ex- 
 cluded from communion the Arminians, who 
 
76 The Bible. 
 
 were followers of Calvin in everything except 
 his harsh doctrine on predestination. Now 
 the Lutherans, who adored Christ in the 
 Host, were idolaters in the eyes of the' Hu- 
 guenots ; yet they were admitted to Com- 
 munion, and those who denied only absolute 
 predestination to sin and hell were excluded ! 
 Worldly interest was the real motive of all 
 these re-unions. Interest was what made 
 that compromise which is called the Church 
 of England ; and the interest of his subjects, 
 for whom an united religion appeared to him 
 as desirable as an united fatherland, was 
 what determined probably the late King of 
 Prussia to oblige his Lutheran and Calvinistic 
 subjects to bend their necks to one common 
 religious yoke. They do things according to 
 military system in Prussia ; but we have seen 
 lately in the United States a re-union, or 
 marriage, it was called, effected between the 
 old-school Presbyterians and the Presby- 
 terians of the young school. Now, if I am 
 not mistaken, the bone of contention be- 
 
The Bible. jj 
 
 tween these schools, was that same question 
 of predestination, which caused division and 
 civil war among the Calvinists of Holland. 
 Is the true belief on this point fundamental 
 or not ? 
 
 A learned author has enumerated 24 es- 
 sential points of the Christian faith, which 
 certainly are not clearly expressed in Scrip- 
 ture ; for example, the perpetual virginity of 
 the mother of God ; St. Matthew, i. 2 5, says : 
 " He (St. Joseph) knew her not till she brought 
 forth her first-born son." On -the strength of 
 this passage, which appeared to give some 
 color to his interpretation, Helvidius main- 
 tained that the Virgin afterwards had other 
 sons, and he was condemned as a heretic by 
 Sts. Augustin and Jerome, each of whom 
 wrote a book against him. The question 
 therefore of the fundamentals is a difficult 
 one. Yet those who make this admission, 
 maintain in the same breath that every one 
 can easily find out in the Bible what is ne- 
 cessary for salvation. In reality, this inven- 
 
78 The Bible. 
 
 tion of fundamentals is nothing but a substi- 
 tution of formularies of men in the place of 
 both the divine authority of the Church and 
 the written word of God. It destroys all 
 belief in the inspiration of Scripture ; for, if 
 great portions of that volume are not neces- 
 sary to be believed, but have been handed 
 over, as the world is said to have been, to 
 the disputes of the children of Adam, who 
 will believe that anything in the book was 
 ever dictated by Almighty God ? who will 
 believe on the authority of mere sects of men, 
 that the Infinite Wisdom has condemned us to 
 dive in search of pearls of truth into an ocean 
 of words in a book, which, while it is our only 
 guide in our search, nowhere says in what part 
 that truth is to be found, which portion of it- 
 self is inspired and which is not, which is of 
 necessity to be believed and which is not, 
 which is verily and indeed the word of God 
 and which is merely the production of the 
 labor of man ? This distinction has greatly 
 contributed to diminish respect for the sacred 
 
The Bible. jg 
 
 ' volume, and confidence in any of its state- 
 ments ; and its assertion was one step to- 
 wards those final general results of Protest- 
 antism and free inquiry which we witness 
 everwhere around us at the present day, in 
 the rationalism, the utter indifference as to 
 religion, and the spirit of ^ universal doubt, 
 which are the characteristics of the times in 
 which we live. 
 
 If the divisions of Christendom are only on 
 account of non-essential points, why did it 
 ever divide ? why do the sects divide among 
 themselves? And why did they separate 
 from the Catholic Church, which, according 
 to them all, believes in the fundamental ar- 
 ticles of the Christian faith ? If this distinc- 
 tion of fundamental and non-fundamental 
 points, unknown even to the early heretics, 
 be true, what could justify Martin Luther in 
 going out of the Church ? If he discovered 
 errors in the Church of Rome, since they re- 
 garded only non-essential points, about a 
 thousand of which all Christians most in- 
 
80 The Bible. 
 
 evitably disagree, was not he, a Priest of that 
 Church, obliged to avoid giving the great 
 scandal of rending by schism the seamless 
 garment of the Spouse of Christ, and destroy- 
 ing that beautiful outward unity which is one 
 of the most imposing marks of the true worship 
 and religion of a one and indivisible God ? 
 These questions are all the more pertinent 
 because, when a certain number of Reformers, 
 calling themselves orthodox, and giving the 
 epithet of heterodox to all those who will not 
 hold what they hold, would have agreed on 
 a certain number of points as fundamental, 
 could they make an act of faith on the sub- 
 ject ? They would have nothing for them 
 but their own opinion. Confessedly, since 
 they do not claim infallibility, they would 
 opine merely that these are the fundamental 
 articles, and that others are not. They may 
 be mistaken ; to-morrow they may see a 
 reason for thinking otherwise ; but, until 
 then, they believe that this is the Christian 
 faith. Is this the realization of the plan, the 
 
The Bible. 8 1 
 
 desire and promises of Christ? Did He 
 provide no better method of making known 
 to men His revelation ? of securing that unity 
 in His Church which He prayed for to His 
 Father. " Father, make them one, as We 
 are one?" of conveying that certitude, with- 
 out which the mind of the sincere Christian, 
 and especially the soul anxious for its eternal 
 safety, cannot rest ? For what soul that has 
 read these words in holy Writ, " Depart from 
 me, ye cursed," " Work out your salvation 
 in fear and trembling," " He who shall not 
 believe, shall be condemned," — can repose and 
 sleep in the quiet assurance that it opines 
 this point to be fundamental in the Christian 
 religion, and that other to be a non-essential 
 one which to-morrow it may judge to be of 
 necessary credence for salvation ? 
 
 Are these men willing to lay down their 
 lives and die for the truth of their conviction. 
 Look to and survey the scene of Protestant 
 and Catholic missions for the answer. No 
 year passes without the soil of some pagan 
 
82 The Bible. 
 
 land being bedewed with the blood of lonely 
 Catholic martyrs. Bible missionaries are to 
 be found too ; but, as a Protestant writer 
 says, in their comfortable homes, with " the 
 inevitable gun-boat" lying close to the bank 
 for their protection. There are very many 
 good persons yet, I trust, who, educated in 
 prejudice against the Catholic Church, and 
 sincerely believing the truths which they 
 have been taught, with that good faith which 
 makes them pleasing unto God, would be will- 
 ing to lay down their lives, if necessary for 
 the Christian religion ; and, in the first en- 
 thusiasm of reform, under the excitement of 
 fanaticism, numbers of men, who, while 
 claiming liberty for all, with an inconsistency 
 not uncommon to human nature, showed 
 themselves to be most intolerant, exulted 
 when the opportunity was offered of expos- 
 ing their lives and shedding their blood in 
 what they believed to be the cause of God, 
 and of His Gospel. But that zeal which 
 springs from enthusiasm or fanaticism dies 
 
The Bible. 83 
 
 away with the disappearance of its cause. It 
 has died out in the Turks ; it has died out in 
 the Jews ; it has died out in the sects ; and 
 there are very few men at the present day 
 willing to go the length of sacrificing their 
 life's blood in witness of the Bible being the 
 only rule of faith. The Roman Catholic 
 priest by the side of some obscure bed of 
 contagious disease (as four of our Fathers of 
 St. Francis Xavier's in the course of two 
 years who sacrificed their lives on Blackwell's 
 Island) ; the simple Sister of Charity ; the 
 poor Catholic neophyte bending beneath the 
 rattan in the Corea and in Tonquin ; the 
 humble and suffering Catholic missionary 
 under the sun of Guinea or amid the icy 
 wastes of Lapland ; these may rejoicingly 
 lay down their lives for the faith which they 
 profess, because in them burns the same fiery 
 conviction of the truth which consumed the 
 hearts of the apostles who converted Europe 
 and the martys who died in the amphithea- 
 tres of ancient Rome. 
 
84 The Bible, 
 
 The consistency of the Church's teaching 
 with regard to the Scriptures stands in strong 
 contrast with the variations of the Reformers 
 and their followers. At first these insisted 
 upon clinging to the very letter of the written 
 text ; now their followers, in great number, at- 
 tach very little value to the text whatever. 
 At first they declared that the Bible was clear 
 for all ; now many admit that it is most ob- 
 scure. At first their rule was private inter- 
 pretation, then professions of faith, then the 
 interpretation of the Spirit, then the interpre- 
 tation of reason alone. They explain the 
 Bible by itself, by taste, by the laws of criti- 
 cism, both as to its meaning and as to its in- 
 spiration. At first they admitted some books 
 and rejected others, as they pleased ; then 
 they adopted the Jewish canon, though neither 
 the Jews nor the earliest Fathers were agreed 
 as to which were the canonical books of Scrip- 
 ture. At first the whole Bible was the law ; 
 then the essential fundamental points only 
 were made necessary to be believed ; and 
 
The Bible. 85 
 
 now these, the 19th century men of England, 
 Germany, and North America, have reduced 
 to mighty few indeed. 
 
 The Catholic Church alone collected and 
 preserved the Scriptures during the persecu- 
 tions of the early ages. She kept them dur- 
 ing the inroads of the Barbarians and the wild 
 ages which followed. She alone can account 
 for them, determine their canon, prove their 
 inspiration, and explain their meaning. She 
 has always interpreted them consistently and 
 uniformly, giving to them their obvious and 
 natural sense, accepting all their teaching — 
 as, for example, that on Extreme Unction for 
 the dying, which is so clear in holy writ, and 
 yet denied by all the sects — deducing from 
 them a code of doctrine suited to a superna- 
 tural religion, a religion of self-denial, mortifi- 
 cation and humility, as taught in the myste- 
 ries of the Incarnation and Atonement. And 
 therefore she is always the same. Her ene- 
 mies may quarrel among themselves, or they 
 may be reconciled, like Pilate and Herod, 
 
86 The Bible. 
 
 when they unite in enmity to her. But she 
 is ever one and Catholic, to-day as in the 
 days of Constantine, whether she appears in 
 the persons of 900 venerable men, gathered 
 from all the extremities of the earth in solemn 
 and glorious Council, or whether she appears 
 as one old imprisoned man of 80, the object 
 of the world's derision and of the love of all 
 his children, she is one and Catholic, the faith- 
 ful guardian of the word of God, the unchang- 
 ing expounder of the faith. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 The Church. 
 
 Why are you a Catholic ? This is a ques- 
 tion which every child of the Church should 
 be ready at all times to answer satisfactorily, 
 according to the admonition of the Apostle 
 St. Peter, " being always ready to satisfy 
 every one that asketh you a reason of the 
 hope which is in you," (i Pet. iii. i5.) I am a 
 Catholic because I believe the Catholic Church 
 to be the true and only Church of Christ. 
 
 Christ did establish a Church : this is ad- 
 mitted by all Protestants. Besides there is 
 frequent allusion to the fact in Scripture. 
 (Matt. xvi. 1 8.) "Thou art a rock," says 
 Christ to one of his apostles, " and on this 
 rock I will build My Church." " If he will 
 not hear them," He says, in another place, 
 " tell the Church ; and if he will not hear the 
 
88 The Church. 
 
 Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and 
 the publican," (Matt, xviii. 17.) Elsewhere 
 he speaks of His Church, according to the 
 oriental style, under different figures. Thus 
 He says to His disciple, Simon : " Feed My 
 lambs, feed my sheep," (Jn. xxi. i5.) And 
 Jn. x. 16 : " Other sheep I have that are not 
 of this fold : them also I must bring . . . and 
 there shall be one fold and one shepherd." 
 In Matt, xxii., He likens it to a kingdom and 
 a marriage feast; and Matt. v. 14, to a city 
 seated on a mountain. After His death and 
 ascension we see that His Church continued 
 to exist and began to spread. " Saul ravaged 
 the Church," we are told in the Acts of the 
 Apostles, viii. 3. " The Church indeed had 
 peace throughout all Judea and Galilee and 
 Samaria," (ib. ix. 31.) And from these pas- 
 sages we understand also what that Church 
 was, namely : a society of persons united in 
 obedience to the law revealed by Christ. 
 
 Does this Church still continue to exist at 
 the present day ? There are two ways of ex- 
 
The Church. 89 
 
 amining this question. The first would be to 
 commence from its origin, and, continuing to 
 follow its history through successive genera- 
 tions, to see whether it has really persevered, 
 the same in character and individuality, in un- 
 broken and permanent duration, down to the 
 time in which we live. The second method 
 is to consider whether Jesus Christ has assign- 
 ed certain essential marks or signs by which 
 we are to recognize His Church, which His 
 Church will always openly claim and plainly 
 manifest, a'nd without the possession of which, 
 any body pretending to be, or to be of, His 
 Church, will want the necessary titles to en- 
 sure confidence in the validity of its claim. 
 This method is the shorter, and perhaps the 
 more satisfactory one. The inquiry is simply 
 historical. Does the Bible, taken as an his- 
 torical book, relate that Jesus Christ, its foun- 
 der, designated certain characteristics by which 
 he intended to distinguish His true Church 
 from all other organizations of spurious growth 
 which might in the course of ages endeavor 
 
go The Church. 
 
 to deceive men into the belief that they were 
 in possession of the real revealed and Christian 
 mode of worship ? And is the evidence of 
 contemporaneous facts sufficiently strong to 
 warrant us in asserting that there is one body, 
 and only one, this day in existence, which 
 both claims for itself and possesses all these 
 specified characteristics, against which claim 
 and which possession no solid argument not 
 capable of being satisfactorily answered can 
 be advanced, and which body therefore should 
 be admitted by all reasonable men to be real- 
 ly and truly the very Church established by 
 Christ for the preservation and diffusion of the 
 doctrine which He revealed and wished to be 
 taught for the salvation of all men ? 
 
 The first characteristic of the Church of 
 Jesus Christ, assigned by its founder, is its 
 divine origin : " My doctrine is not mine/ 7 
 he says (Jn. vii. 16.) " but of Him who sent 
 me ;" the true Christian Church cannot be of 
 human origin. " He that speaketh of him- 
 self," adds the Saviour, " seeketh his own 
 
The Church. 91 
 
 glory ; but he that seeketh the glory of him 
 that sent him, he is true." The second is 
 its unity. " There shall be one fold and one 
 shepherd/' he says (Jn. x. 16) : " I am the 
 good shepherd ; and I know mine, and mine 
 know me." This unity was foretold by the 
 prophets and insisted on by the apostles : — 
 " My dove is one," says the spouse in the 
 Canticles, (vi. 8,) " she is the only one of her 
 mother, the chosen of her that bore her." 
 " Thou art beautiful, O my love, sweet and 
 comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army set 
 in array," (ib. vi. 3.) " We, being many," 
 writes St. Paul to the Romans (xii. 5), " are 
 one body in Christ, and each one members 
 one of another." And to the Ephesians (iv) : 
 " I therefore, a prisoner, beseech you that 
 you walk . . . careful to keep the unity of the 
 spirit in the bond of peace. One body and 
 one spirit, as you are called in one hope of 
 your calling. One Lord, one faith, one bap- 
 tism. One God and Father of all, who is 
 above all, and through all, a!nd in us all. . . . 
 
92 The Church. 
 
 He gave some indeed apostles, and some 
 prophets, and some evangelists, and others 
 pastors and doctors. ... for the building up 
 of the body of Christ ; until we all meet in 
 the unity of faith. . . . that henceforth we be 
 no more children tossed to and fro, and 
 carried about with every wind of doctrine by 
 the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness by 
 which they' lie in wait to deceive. But acting 
 truthfully in love, we may in all things grow 
 up in him who is the head, Christ : from 
 whom the whole body, being compacted and 
 fitly joined together, by what every joint sup- 
 plieth according to the operation in the 
 measure of every part, maketh increase of 
 the body unto the building of itself in charity/ ' 
 Is not this insisting on unity ? " Is Christ 
 divided?" he exclaims, in writing to the Cor- 
 inthians (i Cor. i. 13). Christ himself had 
 said that " every kingdom divided against 
 itself shall be made desolate, and every city 
 or house divided against itself shall not stand." 
 (Matth. xii. 2 5). " A man that is a heretic," 
 
The Church. 93 
 
 he (Paul) writes to Titus (iii. 10), who was a 
 bishop, " after the first and second admoni- 
 tion, avoid; knowing that he that is such an 
 one, is subverted and sinneth, being con- 
 demned by his own judgment." How con- 
 demned by his own judgment ? St. John 
 answers (1 Jn. ii. 19) : " They went out from 
 us ; but they were not of us. For if they 
 had been of us, they would no doubt have 
 remained with us." Therefore St. Paul " be- 
 seeches " the Romans : " I beseech you, 
 brethren, to mark them who make dissen- 
 sions and offences contrary to the doctrine 
 which you have learned, and to avoid them,' , 
 (Rom. xvi. 17.) And St. John, in his epistle 
 to Electa pushes the doctrine of excommuni- 
 cation very far, when he says : " If any man 
 come to you and bring not this doctrine, 
 receive him not into the house, nor say to 
 him, God speed you. For he that saith unto 
 him, God speed you, communicateth with his 
 wicked works," (2 Jn. 10.) After all, this is 
 not stronger than to say, as the Saviour did, 
 
94 The Church. 
 
 " He who heareth not the Church, let him be 
 to you as the heathen and the publican. " 
 But it supposes that the Church is indeed 
 " the pillar and the ground of truth," the one 
 " house of the living God," the one ark out 
 of which there can be no salvation. Finally, 
 in testimony of this sign of unity being par- 
 ticularly intended to distinguish His Church, 
 we have Christ's prayer to his Father, of- 
 fered up after his last supper, immediately 
 before separating from His disciples to go 
 forth to His passion : " Holy Father, keep 
 them, in Thy name, whom Thou hast given 
 Me ; that they may be one, as we also are. . . 
 that they also may be sanctified in truth. 
 And not for them only do I pray, but for 
 those also who through their word shall be- 
 lieve in Me : that they all may be one, as 
 Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee : that 
 they may be one in us : that the world may 
 believe that Thou hast sent Me. . . that they 
 may be one as we also are one. I in them 
 and Thou in Me : that they may be made 
 
The Church. 95 
 
 perfect in one ; and the world may know- 
 that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved 
 them, as Thou hast also loved Me," Jn. xvii. 
 It would be difficult to speak more earnestly. 
 And this unity which Christ asks for can 
 hardly be supposed to mean some loose con- 
 nection of charity and good-will ; for he asks 
 for the most intimate union possible, " that 
 they may be one as we are one," that their 
 union may be like that of God the Father 
 and God the Son, whose state of co-existence 
 is not so much that of unity as of identity, 
 identity of nature, identity of substance, 
 identity of individual being. I have chosen 
 to abound in selecting passages in proof of 
 this point, on account of its importance. 
 
 The third character or property of the 
 Church, is its exclusiveness. This follows 
 from some of the texts I have just quoted. 
 "He who will not hear the Church," says 
 our Lord, " let him be to thee as the hea- 
 then and the publican," (Matth. xviii. 17.) " Go 
 ye into the whole world, and preach the 
 
96 The Church. 
 
 Gospel to every creature. He that beliveth 
 and is baptised, shall be saved ; but he that 
 believeth not, shall be condemned," (Mark 
 xvi. 1 5, 16.) il We are of God," writes St. 
 John. " He that knoweth God, heareth us : 
 he that is not of God, heareth us not : by 
 this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit 
 of error," (1 Jn. iv. 6.) The fourth mark is 
 authority in its teachers. This is manifest in 
 all the letters of the apostles, remarkably so 
 in those of St. Peter. " We are of God," 
 says St. John ; " he that knoweth God, 
 heareth us," " He that heareth you," said the 
 Savior, " heareth me ; and he that despiseth 
 you, despiseth me," (Luke x. 16.) " He that 
 heareth not the Church, let him be as the 
 publican." " Go, teach all nations." And in 
 particular to St. Peter : " Feed my lambs, 
 feed my sheep." The fifth mark of the 
 Church is its Visibility. Necessarily so ; for 
 every human society is visible. An invisible 
 Church, that is, a grand human society bound 
 together by some intelligible tie, which never- 
 
The Church. gy 
 
 theless remains unknown, is a contradiction 
 in terms. Ah, it is true that,^ while the body 
 of the Church, which is an exterior, sensible 
 organization, contains both good and wicked, 
 the good only make up the soul of the 
 Church, that is, the number of those who 
 possess actually divine grace, and that these 
 are known only to God, the searcher of 
 hearts. But to say that the public, organized 
 society, which Christ formed for the preser- 
 vation of the deposit of his revelation, is 
 something undiscoverable to human know- 
 leege, is to bewilder our reason and to con- 
 tradict our common sense. " A city seated 
 on a mountain cannot be hid. Neither do 
 men light a candle and put it under a bushel, 
 but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to 
 all in the house," (Matth. v. 14, i5.) Of 
 what house does our Lord speak? of 4 'the 
 house of God, which is the Church of the 
 living God, the pillar and ground of the 
 truth " (1 Tim. iii. i5.) " And evidently great," 
 adds the Apostle (1 Tim. iii. 16) " is the 
 
98 The Church. 
 
 mystery of godliness, which has been preached 
 .... which is believed :" — great by the evi- 
 dence of the Church. " In the last days," 
 says the prophet Isaias (ii. 2, 3.), "the moun- 
 tain of the house of the Lord shall be pre- 
 pared on the top of mountains, and it shall 
 be exalted above the hills. . . . And many 
 people shall go and say : Come and let us go 
 up to the mountains of the Lord, and to the 
 house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach 
 us His ways, and we will walk in His paths/' 
 " A path and a way shall be there ; and it 
 shall be called the holy way : the unclean 
 shall not pass over it ; and this shall be unto 
 you a straight way, so that fools shall not err 
 therein," (Is. xxxv.) Therefore a visible 
 way. 
 
 The sixth distinctive mark of the Church 
 of Jesus Christ is the possession of inerrancy. 
 This follows from what precedes. If Christ 
 gave the authorities in His Church power to 
 teach the truth, since the truth never changes, 
 so long as His Church continues His, it will 
 
The Church. 99 
 
 teach nothing but the truth. We cannot sup- 
 pose that Christ would have ^given it other 
 power. And when we see all men ordered 
 to submit to its teaching, and anathema pro- 
 nounced on him who adopts any other doc- 
 trine, we must conclude that God the Father 
 will watch by His divine providence over this 
 Church, established by His Son, so as to pre- 
 vent it from ever teaching error, unless He 
 wishes to stultify His own work, and, what is 
 most repugnant to His own infinite veracity, 
 to oblige men to accept falsehood as the truth. 
 Several of the texts already quoted from 
 Scripture, imply necessarily the existence of 
 this attribute in the Church : in fact, all those 
 which go to prove its right to speak with au- 
 thority. " Go teach all nations." Teach 
 them what? anything but the truth? " Be- 
 hold I am with you," (Matt, xxvii. 20.) What 
 does Christ mean by this promise of His pre- 
 sence, " I am with you ?" Evidently, what 
 the parent says to its tottering child afraid to 
 fall : " Walk without fear, I will keep you 
 
ioo The Church. 
 
 up ;" what the master says to his servant, or 
 the sovereign to his subject, about to execute 
 his orders : " No harm can befall you, I will 
 take care of the consequences." Christ's pro- 
 mise to "be with" His disciples in their teach- 
 ing, means that He will protect them from the 
 danger accompanying teaching, namely : error. 
 " He that will not hear the Church, let him be 
 to thee as the heathen." " He that heareth 
 you, heareth me." " He that will not believe" 
 your teaching "shall be condemned." "We 
 are of God. He that is not of God, heareth 
 us not. By this we know the spirit of truth 
 and the spirit of error." " Feed my lambs, 
 feed my sheep." With what ? With the 
 truth, surely. Other texts, if possible, even 
 more explicit, might be adduced. " I will 
 build My Church, and the gates of hell shall 
 not prevail against it," (Matt. xvi. 18.) They 
 would prevail if error could enter therein. In 
 His discourse, after the last supper, Christ re- 
 peatedly promises to His disciples the direc- 
 tion of the Spirit of truth. " I will not leave 
 
The Church. 101 
 
 you orphans. ... I will ask the Father, and 
 He shall give you another paraclete (or con- 
 soler), that he may abide with you forever, 
 the Spirit of truth. . . . But the paraclete, the 
 Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in 
 My name, he will teach you all things, and 
 bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I 
 shall have said to you," (Jn. xiv. 16-26.) " He 
 will teach you all truth," (ib. xvi. 13.) " But 
 when the paraclete cometh, whom I will send 
 to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, 
 who proceedeth from the Father, he shall 
 give testimony of Me, and you shall give tes- 
 timony," (ib. xv. 26, 27.) At the first Coun- 
 cil, held in Jerusalem, which was composed, 
 not only of the Apostles, but of a large num- 
 ber of other chiefs of the Church, their disci- 
 ples, a decree was enacted, which we find in 
 full in the Acts of the Apostles (ch. xv.), de- 
 claratory of what the whole pagan world at 
 that time converted to Christianity, was to 
 practice by the will of God. This decree 
 commences with the following remarkable 
 
102 The Church. 
 
 words : " It hath seemed good to the Holy 
 Ghost and to us." The assumption of infal- 
 libility could not be expressed in more forci- 
 ble terms. Other passages, condemnatory of 
 communication with heretics, furnish another 
 proof of the existence of inerrancy in the 
 Church. " Bear not the yoke with unbelievers," 
 says St. Paul to the Corinthians, (2 Cor. vi. 
 14.) Therefore they must know who unbe- 
 lievers are. " What part hath the faithful 
 with the unbeliever ? . . . For you are the 
 temple of the living God. . . . Wherefore go 
 out from among them, and be ye separate, 
 saith the Lord," (ib.) In the third chapter of 
 the Second Epistle to Timothy (I change as to 
 the order) % : " Know that in the last days shall 
 cofne . . . men corrupted in mind, reprobate 
 as to the faith, always learning and never 
 coming to the knowledge of the truth ; as 
 Jannes and Mambres resisted Moses, so these 
 resist the truth . . . Now these avoid." Those 
 who live in the last days will have to be sure 
 that they possess the truth themselves, and 
 
The Church. 103 
 
 are not merely learning, in order to obey this 
 injunction. " There were also false prophets 
 among the people," says St.Teter, (2 Pet. ii. 
 1.,) " even as there shall be among you lying 
 teachers, who shall bring in sects of perdition, 
 and deny the Lord who bought them, bring- 
 ing upon themselves swift destruction 
 
 Leaving the right way they have gone 
 astray," (ib. i5) — he blames them for their er- 
 ror. " These are fountains without water and 
 clouds tossed with whirlwind, to whom the 
 mist of darkness is reserved. For speaking 
 proud words of vanity . . . promising liberty, 
 they themselves are the slaves of corruption," 
 (ib. 17-19.) " Little children," says St. John, 
 " even now there are many Anti-christs. . . . 
 They went out from us . . . that they may be 
 manifest, that they were not all of us," (1 Jn. 
 ii. 18, 19.) Enough for the moment on this 
 subject. 
 
 The seventh gift with which Christ endow- 
 ed His Church was perpetuity. This follows 
 from the very nature of Christ's mission and 
 
104 The Church. 
 
 the object of His Church. He came for the 
 salvation of all men : He died for all ; the ob- 
 ject of His Church was that His doctrine, by 
 which men were to be saved, should be pro- 
 pagated and preserved. So long then as the 
 generations of men shall continue to succeed 
 each other, His Church will have the same 
 object of its existence. He would not there- 
 fore have provided these generations with the 
 means of knowing the way of salvation, if He 
 did not assure to His Church the channel 
 through which that knowledge was to be con- 
 veyed, a duration coextensive with the exist- 
 ence of the human race. The need of the 
 human race to know the truth is always the 
 same. If even in the times of the Apostles 
 false teachers arose, against whose errors the 
 voice of a Church, speaking as Jesus Christ 
 Himself, " Not like the Scribes and Pharisees, 
 but as having authority, " was necessary, in 
 order that the faithful might not be at a loss 
 know what to believe, that necessity became 
 still greater when these first heralds of the 
 
The Church. io5 
 
 faith has been removed by death. Indefecti- 
 bility, moreover, was necessary in order that 
 this perpetual Church might be always able to 
 fulfil the object of its mission. This indefec- 
 tibility means that the existence of the Church 
 should be uninterrupted, that she should never 
 fall into a state of deliquium, or trance, so 
 that she would not be able to make her voice 
 heard or to be recognized — that at no given 
 period she would fail in the accomplishment 
 of the purpose of her creation, the perpetual 
 promulgation with infallible inerrancy of the 
 divine law revealed by Jesus Christ. This 
 follows from the fact that the same need of 
 authoritative instruction exists in one age, in 
 one generation, as in another. It would be a 
 gratuitous supposition to assert that the con- 
 stitution of the Church ever underwent a radi- 
 cal change : what it was in the days of the 
 Apostles and their first disciples, that it 
 must always have been and be. So it was 
 established by Christ. Scripture, history, say 
 nothing of any revolution effected or to be ef- 
 
106 The Church. 
 
 fected in its nature. " Go teach all nations," 
 said Christ, " and behold I am with you all 
 days, even to the consummation of the world." 
 (Matth. xxviii. 20.) Not with the Apostles 
 in person ; they died before the Church was 
 a hundred years old ; but in the persons of 
 their successors. " To the consummation of 
 the world," — here is a promise of perpetuity. 
 " All days" — here is indefectibility. " On this 
 rock I will build my Church, and the gates of 
 hell shall not prevail against it." If that 
 Church should cease to exist, while the gene- 
 rations of men continued to be born, or exist- 
 ing should ever, through corruption or other- 
 wise, fall into such a state that it would be im- 
 possible for them to recognize her voice, she 
 would then no longer, of course, be the organ 
 for communicating Christian truth to men : 
 this would be an evil, and it would conse- 
 quently be just to say that the gates of hell 
 had prevailed against her. 
 
 Eighthly, therefore, as a consequence, Christ 
 must have attached to His Church the mark 
 
The Church. 107 
 
 of sanctity : sanctity in her doctrine, since it 
 was His, and in her fruits of holiness ; " He 
 chose us, says the apostle (Eph. I. 4), " that 
 we should be holy and unspotted in His 
 sight." To these we may add the two notes, 
 as they are called, of apostolicity and Catho- 
 licity : apostolicity because the Church to 
 which the mission was given to " preach," 
 must descend in legitimate succession and 
 without disconnection from the apostles ; Ca- 
 tholicity, or universality, because her mission 
 is to teach " all nations." These three last 
 notes, with that of unity, (and they sufficiently 
 resume the others) are declared in the Nicene 
 or Constantinopolitan creed, which may be 
 found in any edition of the Book of Common 
 Prayer of the Church of England, in this 
 article : " I believe in the one, holy, Catholic, 
 and apostolic Church." 
 
 Such is that city seated on a mountain 
 which is the Church of Christ ; and these 
 four marks expressed by the Fathers of Con- 
 stantinople, are, as it were, the four cardinal 
 
io8 The Church. 
 
 points from which she may be regarded in 
 order to be recognized. Such she undoubtedly 
 was in the time of the apostles, and, if she 
 exists at all, such she must be to-day. 
 
 Another question may be examined here, 
 as its answer will disclose to us an additional 
 distinguishing feature of the true Church 
 founded by Jesus Christ. How was that per- 
 petual Church to preserve the deposit of His 
 revelation confided to its care ? Was it to 
 be kept in writing, or handed down orally 
 from mouth to mouth ? or was it to be pre- 
 served partly in each of these ways ? That 
 by mere oral transmission the whole revela- 
 tion of Christ might be preserved intact and 
 unaltered till the end of time, is possible, 
 through a special providence of Almighty 
 God. No one asserts, however, that such has 
 been the case : it would hardly have become 
 the plan of the Creator, who, even in the 
 supernatural order, adapts his ways sweetly 
 and wonderfully to the wants of man's nature 
 and condition, to thus violently and forcibly, 
 
The Church. 109 
 
 as it were, have maintained the integrity and 
 purity of His revelation, by an almost manifest 
 miracle. Two probable ways maybe supposed 
 in which the divine law might have been 
 entrusted to the keeping of an authoritative 
 Church : the first would be the giving to it a 
 complete written code, of which it was to be 
 the. future interpreter. Thus God did with 
 the Jews. Until the time of Moses there 
 was no written law. The law of nature and 
 the dictate of reason, by which men were 
 then governed, were made manifest to each 
 individual by the voice of conscience speak- 
 ing within him, confirmed, as it was, by "the 
 authority of parental instruction and the com- 
 mon sense of mankind. If there were any 
 positive additional precepts, as, for example, 
 the law of sacrifice, these were transmitted 
 orally from father to son, and from generation 
 to generation. This was not difficult in a 
 primitive age, when the lives of men were 
 long, and the precepts they had to observe 
 were few. At all events here was a purely 
 
1 10 The Church. 
 
 traditional law, that never was written, which 
 lasted from the days of Adam to Noah, and 
 from Noah to Abraham, and from Abraham 
 till the Jews had gone out from the land of 
 Egypt. Then the ceremonial law, detailed 
 in great minuteness and precision in the 
 books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus, was 
 revealed to the great Jewish legislator. Did 
 Christ thus commit His whole law to His 
 Church ? Protestants say that he did, and 
 that we have it in the Bible, especially in the 
 books of the New Testament. I will not 
 discuss again the question of private inter- 
 pretation. But if we regret that theory, as 
 untenable in itself, and opposed to what we 
 have said in this lecture of the office of the 
 Christian Church, it would be still very rea- 
 sonable to suppose that Christ, following the 
 example of Moses, and indeed of nearly all 
 lawgivers, would have delivered his whole 
 code of legislation completely written out, to 
 the constituted authorities in His Church 
 that according to it they should judge, rule 
 
The Churth. 
 
 in 
 
 and govern. Catholics say that He did not 
 do so however, but adopted the other more 
 remarkable method, namely, that he made 
 known His whole law orally, and orally 
 only, to His disciples ; that these then com- 
 mitted it gradually to writing, the whole of 
 it ; that in doing so, sometimes they were in- 
 spired, and sometimes they were not ; that 
 the pages they were inspired to write com- 
 pose what is now called the New Testament, 
 which does not, at least explicitly, contain all 
 that Christ revealed ; that the rest of His re- 
 velation is to be found in other writings not 
 inspired, which have been preserved till our 
 time, and which, by a special protection of 
 divine providence, will be sufficiently pre- 
 served for no part of the Christian revelation 
 ever to be forgotten, so long as the Christian 
 Church is destined to exist ; and that it is 
 the office of the Church, guided by that holy 
 Spirit, which her founder promised to her 
 should " dwell " with her " all days," teaching 
 her " all truth," to declare to her children 
 
H2 The Church. 
 
 what in those writings was of divine origin, 
 and which, being part of the deposit of divine 
 revelation, it was obligatory for them to be- 
 lieve, and, if preceptive, to practice. That 
 this should be so is possible, since Christ was 
 free to act in this matter as He pleased. It is 
 therefore a question of fact. Let us consider 
 then the arguments by which Catholics un- 
 dertake to prove the truth of this position. 
 
 In the first place, Christ never wrote a line 
 himself. We are not told of His having 
 ever written but once : that was when the 
 Jews brought to Him a woman accused ot 
 adultery, when he leaned down and wrote, 
 as it is supposed, some of the secret sins of 
 her accusers ; but he wrote them so that 
 they might be effaced — in the dust. Every, 
 one of the books in the New Testament was 
 written either by one of the apostles or by 
 their disciples. Therefore Christ did trans- 
 mit His whole revelation orally, and not in 
 writing. 
 
 Secondly ; He never told His disciples to 
 
 
The Church. \\% 
 
 write. He bade them go and " preach." 
 And the fact is that they did not write, ex- 
 cept as occasion required that they should 
 explain certain points to certain portions of 
 the Church. So Matthew wrote an abridg- 
 ment of the life .of his master, in order to com- 
 municate more easily to the early Christians 
 the knowledge of the facts it contained. St. 
 John terminates his narrative of the actions 
 of the Saviour with this remark : "if they 
 were written every one, the world itself, I 
 think, would not be able to contain the books 
 that should be written." And all the letters 
 of St. Paul were evidently written as the ur- 
 gency of some occasion required. The apos- 
 tles might have easily composed at least a 
 Catechism. The idea does not appear to have 
 ever occured to them. It is certain that they 
 did not write even the Creed which bears 
 their name. 
 
 Thirdly ; the writings in the New Testa- 
 ment bear internal evidence that they were 
 never intended to form a complete code of 
 
1 14 The Church. 
 
 doctrine. The law of Moses is perfect, clear, 
 distinct, and precise. The books of the New 
 Testament, on the contrary, have no legal 
 form ; they have little or no connection with 
 each other. They are : first, four short lives 
 of Christ, two of which were not written by 
 Apostles ; then an incomplete narrative of 
 some of the doings of one or two of the 
 Apostles, written by Luke, a companion of 
 St. Paul ; then a number of hasty letters writ- 
 ten by Paul to different congregations of 
 Christians ; then a few letters of some of the 
 other Apostles ; and, finally, a most obscure 
 series of prophecies, revealed to St. John on 
 the island of Patmos. They bear so unmis- 
 takeably the character of occasional writings 
 that it requires a strong act of faith to believe 
 that they were inspired : it would be doing 
 violence to our reason to suppose that they 
 were intended for a code of laws. Could 
 Jesus Christ, who was to perfect the work of 
 Moses, especially foreseeing, as he did, the 
 future controversies which were to arise in 
 
The Church. 1 1 5 
 
 the Christian world, have willed that His law 
 should be drawn up in so imperfect and unsa- 
 tisfactory a fashion, when He might have had 
 it written out in a clear, complete, and me- 
 thodical manner ? 
 
 Fourthly, there is no word in Scripture 
 which says that the whole revelation is con- 
 tained in the Bible alone. This circumstance, 
 taken in connection with the fact that Christ 
 wrote nothing Himself, and ordered his Apos- 
 tles, not to write, but to " preach" and to 
 " teach," should convince us that He never in- 
 tended His revelations to be confided formal- 
 ly to writing. On the contrary, we find fre- 
 quent allusion, especially in the Epistles of St. 
 Paul, who of all the Apostles was himself the 
 one who wrote most, to the mere oral tradi- 
 tion of the faith, as the method to which Chris- 
 tians should attach themselves and on which 
 they should rely. " Now I praise you, breth- 
 ren," he writes to the Corinthians, (i Cor. xi. 
 2), " that in all things you are mindful of me, 
 and keep my ordinances, as I delivered them 
 
1 1 6 The Church. 
 
 to you." To the Thessalonians : " Therefore, 
 brethren, stand firm, and hold the traditions 
 which you have learned, whether by word or 
 by our epistle," (2 Thess. ii. 14.) And again : 
 " And we charge you, brethren, in the name 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw 
 yourselves from every brother walking disor- 
 derly, and not according to the tradition 
 which they have received of us," (ib. iii. 6.) 
 " Hold the form .of sound words," he writes 
 to Timothy, in his second epistle (2 Tim. i. 13) 
 — and notice, by the way, how particular he 
 was even about the expression of doctrines, 
 " hold the form of sound words — which thou 
 hast heard from me in faith, and in the love 
 which is in Christ Jesus ;" and further on (ii. 
 2): "And the things which thou hast heard 
 from me, before many witnesses, the same 
 commend to faithful men, who shall be Jit to 
 teach others also T and finally (iii. 14) : " But 
 continue thou in the things which thou hast 
 learned, and which have been committed to 
 thee, knowing of whom thou hast learned." 
 
The Church. 117 
 
 Thus the early Christians did not receive their 
 religious instruction through the eye, but 
 through the ear. Through prevision, as it 
 were, of the future dissensions among those 
 who, not only in our times, but in the earliest 
 ages of the Church, proclaimed that the whole 
 Bible alone, self-interpreted, was the only rule 
 of faith, our Saviour seems to have willed that 
 His word should be propagated, not by writ- 
 ing, but by " preaching," and the knowledge 
 of his faith acquired, not by reading, but, in 
 the words of the Apostle, " by hearing/' 
 (Rom. x. 17.) " Therefore we also give 
 thanks to God without ceasing/' writes St. 
 Paul to the Thessalonians, " because that 
 when you had received from us the word of 
 the hearing of God, you received it, not as the 
 word of men, but (as it truly is) the word of 
 God," (1 Thess. ii. 13.) Christ reproved the 
 Jews for believing in traditions, but they were 
 the traditions of men, the unauthorized tradi- 
 tions of the Pharisees, mere excrescences on 
 the Mosaic law of God. To the Galatians : 
 
1 1 8 The Church. 
 
 " As we said before, so I say now again : If 
 any one preach to you a gospel besides that 
 which you have received, let him be anathe- 
 ma," (Gal. i. 9.) The question is always 
 about preaching, never about writing. 
 
 Fifthly ; it was only at the close of the 
 fourth century, that the question, which are 
 the canonical books of the New Testament, 
 was finally settled. And it was settled by 
 tradition. There was no other way of know- 
 ing which of the books then in circulation as 
 inspired were genuine, and which were spu- 
 rious. The same tradition alone during that 
 period could tell whether the whole revela- 
 tion was contained in these books or not, 
 since the Scriptures themselves say nothing 
 on the point. This tradition is contained in 
 the writings of the Fathers who lived during 
 that interval. Now these Fathers assert the 
 very contrary. I will quote a few passages 
 from some of them. 
 
 St. Irenaeus : " Had the apostle left us no- 
 thing in writing, must not we then have fol- 
 
The Church. 1 19 
 
 lowed that rule of doctrine which they de- 
 livered to those to whom they entrusted 
 their churches ? To this rule many bar- 
 barous nations submit, who, deprived of the 
 aid of letters, have the words of salvation 
 carefully written on their hearts, and jealously 
 guard the doctrine which has been delivered." 
 Tertullian : " To know what the apostles 
 taught, recourse must be had to the churches 
 which they founded, and which they in- 
 structed by word of mouth and by their 
 epistles. ... If the truth then be adjudged to 
 us who embrace the rule which the Church 
 received from the apostles, the apostles from 
 Christ, and Christ from God, heretics, it is 
 plain, cannot be allowed to appeal to the 
 Scriptures. . . . Another rule should rather be 
 pursued. The question is : — To whom was 
 that doctrine committed by which we are 
 made Christians ? For where this doctrine 
 and this faith shall be found, there will be 
 the truth of the Scriptures, their exposition 
 and the exposition of all Christian traditions. 
 
120 The Church. 
 
 ... If Scripture has here defined nothing, 
 surely usage has ; which usage has arisen 
 from tradition. For had it not been delivered, 
 how could it have attained praqtice ? But 
 you say, even in speaking of tradition, some 
 written authority is necessary. Let us in- 
 quire whether no tradition should be admitted, 
 unless it be written. I will allow that it 
 should not, if no example of other practices 
 can be adduced which we maintain on the 
 sole title of tradition and the strength of 
 custom, without the smallest written au- 
 thority." Here he quotes some of these 
 practices : " Of these and other usages, if 
 you ask for the written authority of the 
 Scriptures, none will be found. They spring 
 from tradition, which practice has confirmed, 
 and obedience ratified." ( De Coi r onamilitu.) 
 Eusebius : " The disciples of Christ, im- 
 parted their lessons, sometimes in writing, 
 and sometimes by word of mouth, as things 
 to be observed by an unwritten rule. . . . 
 These truths, though they be consigned to 
 
The Churth. 1 2 1 
 
 the sacrea writings, are still, in a fuller man- 
 ner, confirmed by the tradition of the Ca- 
 tholic Church, which Church is diffused all 
 over the earth. This unwritten tradition 
 confirms and seals the testimonies of the 
 holy Scripture." 
 
 Origen : " The Gospels are but four, as I 
 have received from tradition, which alone are 
 admitted, without controversy, in the univer- 
 sal Church of God." 
 
 St. Cyprian ; " Know then that we are in- 
 structed to observe what Christ delivered in 
 offering the chalice, and to depart from no- 
 thing of which he set us the example. The 
 chalice which is offered up in remembrance 
 of Him, must contain wine and water." 
 (There is no mention of this in Scripture). . . 
 " It is easy for minds that are religious and 
 simple, to lay aside error and discover truth ; 
 for if we turn to the source of divine tradition, 
 error ceases." On this passage St. Augustin 
 makes this comment : " The advice which 
 Cyprian gives to recur to the tradition of the 
 
122 The Church. 
 
 apostles, and thence to bring down the series 
 to our own times, is excellent and manifestly 
 to be followed." It was to this Cyprian that 
 St. Stephen, the then bishop of Rome, wrote : 
 " Let no innovation be introduced ; but let 
 that be followed which is handed down to us 
 by tradition ;" namely, not to rebaptize here- 
 tics* 
 
 St. Athanasius : " Let us again consider 
 from the earliest period the tradition, the 
 doctrine, and faith of the Catholic Church, 
 which God first delivered, the apostles pro- 
 claimed, and the succeeding Fathers fostered 
 and preserved. On these authorities the 
 Church is founded." 
 
 St. Epiphanius : " We must look also to 
 tradition, for all things cannot be learned 
 from the Scriptures. For which reason, the 
 holy apostles left some things in writing, and 
 others not. Which Paul himself affirms. . . . 
 We have the traditions of the apostles, and 
 the holy Scriptures, and the succession of 
 doctrine and truth diffused all around. . . . 
 
The Church. j 2 -i 
 
 Who is the best informed? an insignificant 
 mortal who made* his appearance yesterday ? 
 or the witnesses who lived before us, and who 
 held that doctrine in the Church which they 
 had received from their predecessors, in the 
 same manner as the Church continues to the 
 present day to maintain that true and genuine 
 faith which came to her from her fathers ? 
 
 St. Basil : " Truly your influence must be 
 great if we should prefer your inventions to 
 the tradition of faith. . . . Among the points 
 of belief and practice in the Church, some 
 were delivered in writing, while others were 
 received by apostolic tradition. . . Both have 
 equal authority : if we attempt to reject as 
 matters of little moment, such points as were 
 not written, we shall, by our imprudence, 
 offer a signal injury to the Gospel, confining 
 the whole preaching of faith to a mere name 
 .... The day would not suffice me were I 
 to enumerate all those points which have 
 been thus delivered. ... It is apostolical to 
 adhere to unwritten traditions. ... It is the 
 
124 The Church. 
 
 common aim of all the enemies of sound 
 doctrine, to shake the solidity of our faith in 
 Christ, by annulling apostolic tradition. . . . 
 They dismiss the unwritten testimony of the 
 Fathers as a thing of no value. . . . Separate 
 not the Holy Ghost from the Father and the 
 Son ; let tradition deter you. For so the 
 Lord taught, the apostles preached, the 
 Fathers maintained, the martyrs confirmed. 
 Be satisfied to speak as you were instructed/' 
 
 St. Augustin : " Were the custom of bap- 
 tizing infants not of apostolic tradition, it 
 should not be admitted. . . . Which practice 
 came down from apostolic tradition ; as many 
 things which are not found in their epistles, 
 nor in later councils, and yet, because they 
 are observed through the Church, are believed 
 to have descended from the apostles.. . . What 
 the whole Church observes, what was not 
 decreed by councils, but always retained, is 
 justly believed to be of apostolic origin. ,, 
 
 St. Jerome : " Though there were no Scrip- 
 ture authority, the consent of the whole world 
 
The Church. 125 
 
 would carry with it the weight of a command. 
 For many things that by tradition are ob- 
 served in the churches, have acquired the 
 authority of a written law." (Said as by a 
 heretic, but admitted by Jerome.) 
 
 St. John Chrysostom : (on 2 Thess. ii. 14) 
 S\ Hence it is plain that all things were not 
 delivered in writing, but many otherwise ; 
 and are equally worthy to be belived. Where- 
 fore let us hold fast to the traditions of the- 
 Church. It is tradition : let that suffice." 
 
 St. Ignatius Martyr, (according to Euse- 
 bius) : " As he was led through Asia. . . and 
 entered the several cities, in his exhortations 
 to the churches, he admonished them to hold 
 fast to the tradition of the apostles, which 
 tradition, confirmed by his own testimony, 
 for the more sure information of posterity, he 
 deemed it necessary to commit to writing." 
 
 Sixthly ; both the Jews and Protestants 
 have believed firmly, as of faith, many things 
 of which no mention is made in Scripture, 
 and which are known only by ecclesiastical 
 
126 The Church. 
 
 tradition. The old Scripture said not a word 
 to the Jews about their own inspiration ; it 
 was known to them therefore only by the 
 authoritative tradition of the synagogue. So 
 also the remedy for original sin for females, 
 of which no mention is made in Scripture, as 
 well as for boys who died before the eighth 
 day, on which they were to be circumcised ; 
 and for the gentiles. So also only by tradi- 
 tion they knew that their bloody sacrifices 
 were figurative of the death of the Messiah. 
 Protestants accept tradition when they appeal 
 to the Fathers. And, in fact, critically speak- 
 ing, we are more easily certain of the truth 
 of an universal tradition, founded on a consen- 
 sus Patrmn, than we are of the incorruption 
 of a certain text in a book, as the Bible. 
 But they admit a great many other things : — 
 The procession of the Holy Ghost from the 
 Son ; the perpetual virginity of Mary, Mo- 
 ther of Christ (there is a text of Scripture 
 which seems to deny it, which I have already 
 quoted,) ; the necessary form of baptism for 
 
The Church. 127 
 
 its validity ; the value of baptism adminis- 
 tered by infidels, heretics, or sinners ; the 
 validity of baptism by aspersion or-sprinkling 
 instead of by immersion ; infant baptism 
 (Christ's words seem to exclude infants, for 
 he says, he who will believe and is baptized, 
 shall be saved,) ; the observance of Sunday 
 instead of the Sabbath, Saturday ; the dispen- 
 sation from washing feet (Christ bade His 
 disciples wash each others feet), the permis- 
 sion to eat blood and the flesh of strangled 
 animals (the apostles, Act. xv, forbade all the 
 gentile converts to do so) ; the Apostles' 
 Creed itself, in fine, which is not found in 
 Scripture, and the assertion which it contains 
 of Christ's descent to Limbo. 
 
 Tradition is the natural way of transmitting 
 religious knowledge, by instruction from father 
 to son ; in many cases the necessary and only 
 possible way. It was the way in which the 
 early Patriarchs propagated their faith and 
 hope of a Redeemer to come. The Jews did 
 not read, but were taught. As we learn from 
 
128 The Church. 
 
 the Book of Esdras, having lost their know- 
 ledge of the old Hebrew, during the captivity, 
 which lasted for 14 generations, and changed 
 their language from Hebrew to Chaldaic or 
 Syriac, after their return, they could not even 
 read their sacred books. Even in civil socie- 
 ties we find the existence of a traditional law 
 parallel and equally obligatory with the statu- 
 tory code. The common law of England and 
 the United States is a remarkable example 
 of the case. " The Municipal law of Eng- 
 land," says Judge Blackstone, "may be divid- 
 ed into the lex no7t-scripta } the unwritten or 
 common law, and the lex scripta, or statute 
 law. . . . The common law is the first ground 
 and chief corner-stone of the laws of England. 
 ... If the question arises : how these cus- 
 toms and maxims are to be known, and by 
 whom their validity is to be determined ? the 
 answer is : by the judges in the several courts 
 of justice. They are the depositories of the 
 law, the living oracles who must decide in all 
 
The Church. 129 
 
 cases of doubt, and who are bound by oath 
 to decide according to the law of the land." 
 
 Those apostolic traditions of the^Christian 
 Church, which St. Ignatius, martyr, wished to 
 be committed to writing, are now to be found 
 in the writings of the Fathers, confirmed by 
 the Acts of Councils, of Saints, and Martyrs, 
 by liturgies, rites, ceremonies, worship, the 
 works of theologians, ecclesiastical history, 
 ecclesiastical approbations and condemnations, 
 and especially to-day, by ancient monuments 
 of every sort, by epitaphs, inscriptions, medals, 
 pictures, statues, ornaments of jewelry, em- 
 blems of every kind buried in the catacombs. 
 When, as Blackstone says, " the judges of the 
 several courts," that is, the bishops of the 
 Church, have examined these various sources, 
 that which they find, according to St. Augus- 
 tin, to have been " not decreed by Councils, 
 but observed by the whole Church, and al- 
 ways retained," Catholic and perpetual — in 
 the words of St. Vincent of Lerins, believed 
 semper et ubique et ab omnibus, in all places, 
 
130 The Church. 
 
 at all times, and by all — that they, with the 
 same Augustin, " justly believes to be of 
 Apostolic origin/' and proclaim it such. In 
 virtue of Christ's promise that he would send 
 His divine Spirit upon His Church, to teach 
 it all things, and prevent it from falling into 
 error, and of the supernatural providence by 
 which He is bound to watch over the preser- 
 vation of His revealed tradition, when the au- 
 thorities in the Church, after prayer, have 
 completed their research, they possess not 
 only a natural certitude as to what is of apos- 
 tolic tradition, but a divine assurance as dis- 
 tinct and peremptory as the Church's author- 
 itative interpretation of the written word. 
 
 In another lecture we shall see whether the 
 Catholic Church possesses all these attributes 
 of the true Church of Christ. Let us remark 
 at present that she claims to possess them all, 
 and that no other church has even claimed so 
 much; so that either the Christian Church 
 has no existence, or the Catholic Church is 
 the Christian Church. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 The Church. 
 
 In our last lecture we enumerated the char- 
 acterizing marks by which the true Church 
 of Christ can be distinguished from every 
 other ; divinity of origin, visibility, perpetuity, 
 authority in teaching, exclusiveness, inerran- 
 cy, and the four notes enumerated in the 
 Nicene Creed, unity, sanctity, apostolicity, 
 and Catholicity, or universality. Simply to 
 establish the necessity of the existence of 
 these features in the Church, is almost enough 
 to prove that the Catholic Church must be 
 that Church, since she alone claims to pos- 
 sess them all, and, consequently, if she be 
 not that Church, the Church of Christ has 
 ceased -to exist. It would be impossible in 
 the course of one hour, to enter into a full 
 proof of the right by which the Catholic 
 
132 The Church. 
 
 Church claims these titles. What I propose 
 doing this evening, is, simply, to point out 
 some strong lines of argument in her favor, 
 and then to insist a little more fully on one 
 of those qualities, which is perhaps the one 
 which most strongly recommends itself at 
 the present time, to the attention of persons 
 anxious to know the Unth. 
 
 In the first place, as to the origin of the 
 the Church, she certainly had no other 
 founder but Jesus Christ. She is eminently 
 the " old Church." We know when Martin 
 Lutner was born, and when he died, and we 
 know when John Calvin died, and when 
 Henry VIII. died, and when his daughter 
 Elizabeth died, as we know when Arius lived 
 and flourished and died, and when Nestorius 
 and when Macedonius and Eutyches lived 
 and died. Before Arius there was no Arian 
 Church ; before Nestorius there was no Nes- 
 torian Church ; before Eutyches there was 
 no Eutychian Church ; before Luther there 
 was no Lutheran Church. But no man can 
 
The Church. 133 
 
 name any founder for that which is called to- 
 day the Catholic Church other than Jesus 
 Christ. She can therefore claim divinity of 
 origin, and the note of apostolicity inasmuch as 
 she descends from apostles ; and the sign 
 of perpetuity, at least so far as, judging from 
 the past and present, it is allowed to us to 
 penetrate into the future. For she has out- 
 lived a thousand churches, of which she has 
 seen the rise, the progress, the decay ; and 
 at this day, 1 800 years after her birth, she is 
 as vigorous as ever she was, as full of life ; 
 her children are as muoh attached to her as 
 ever, and there is no reason to suppose that 
 she who has survived through so many 
 changes of kingdoms and races, so many re- 
 volutions and convulsions and transformations 
 of society, of schools, of ideas, of manners of 
 living, thinking, and doing — there is no rea- 
 son to suppose that she will not survive with 
 the same vitality through all the like muta- 
 tions that are yet to come. 
 
 She can vindicate for herself the marks of 
 
134 The Church. 
 
 unity and Catholicity. I place these two at- 
 tributes in juxta-position ; because it is her 
 Catholicity which strongly reveals her unity, 
 and it is her unity which preserves and ex- 
 plains her Catholicity. The Church is Ca- 
 tholic. From the day the apostles went forth 
 to carry the sound of the Gospel to the ends 
 of the earth, the Church has existed every- 
 where ; she has been the Church universal. 
 But she is everywhere the same, she is Ca- 
 tholic and one. And this is what distin- 
 guishes her from the sects. Everywhere 
 you will find different churches, everywhere 
 you will find heresies : but they are not 
 everywhere the same ; the heresy of Ar- 
 menia is not the heresy of Egypt, the heresy 
 of Egypt is not the heresy of Abyssinia, the 
 heresy of Abyssinia is not the heresy of 
 Greece, the heresy of Greece is not the 
 heresy of Germany. But the Catholic Church 
 is everywhere, at all times, the same. The 
 existence of this great communion, the Ro- 
 man Catholic Church in all parts of the world, 
 
The Church. 135 
 
 at every epoch of time, is a fact so patent as 
 to admit of no denial. Therefore we can 
 claim for the Church the note of Catholicity 
 — and, I may add, undoubtedly, of visibility. 
 But let us consider a little this mark of 
 unity, that we may see whether the Catholic 
 Church really possesses, in its perfection and 
 fullness, that unity which jesus Christ wished 
 to exist in His Church. We have seen in 
 our last lecture how the inspired writers in- 
 sist on the existence and preservation of this 
 unity in the Church. We have seen that 
 Christ intended it should be the most abso- 
 lute unity possible in a corporate body. Christ 
 himself compares that unity to the unity 
 which exists between the three divine Per- 
 sons in the Godhead. His apostles compares 
 it to the union which joins together all the 
 members of the same one human body, and 
 again to the sanctity of the marriage tie. 
 Now no loose connection, no general kind of 
 agreement, will realize the idea of compact 
 oneness which is conveyed to us by these 
 
! 36 The Church. 
 
 similes. The efforts of the sects, regularly 
 repeated from time to time, to come to some 
 kind of mutual understanding, prove too 
 clearly how wofully they are conscious of not 
 possessing the least appearance even of this 
 unity. What then ? has the Church of Christ 
 proved a failure ? It needs no argument to 
 show that such a close connection as the Ro- 
 man Catholic communion must possess, in 
 order to verify its claim to be the one and 
 only Church of Christ, could only be the 
 effect of the operation of the Spirit of God 
 Himself, watching, according to Christ's pro- 
 mise, over the preservation of His Church. 
 No human agent or motive could keep thou- 
 sands of millions of men of every variety of 
 nationality and character, during sixty gen- 
 erations, united in one same submission of 
 belief, of worship, practice, and obedience. If 
 such a phenomenon has been and endured, 
 surely, unless we deny the existence of a God, 
 we must say, the finger of God is here— this is 
 the work of the hand of the Most High. The 
 
The Church. 137 
 
 unity of the Catholic Church is threefold, — ■ 
 and observe how well she deserves to be 
 called one under each aspect : unity of go- 
 vernment, unity of faith, unity of worship. 
 She has one head, the successor of the apos- 
 tles, at Rome ; under him are patriarchs ; 
 then come metropolitans ; then bishops ; 
 then priests, each pastor in his parish ; and 
 finally, the simple faithful. Truly she is " an 
 army in array," composed of rank and file ; 
 she is a body made up of members " fitly 
 joined together." Her belief on every point 
 which she teaches as of faith, is everywhere 
 absolutely the same : and any one that would 
 cease to believe as the rest of her children, 
 would, by the very fact, cease to belong to 
 her communion. Take a Catholic catechism 
 printed in China, and another printed in 
 Syria, or at San Francisco, or in Lapland ; 
 you will find them identical in their doctrine, 
 even to the very form of its expression. 
 But have there not been different schools 
 of doctrine in the Church ? On points which 
 
138 The Church. 
 
 were not of faith, yes ; on points defined as 
 of faith, no. That Catholics should disagree 
 on points whereupon Jesus Christ has made 
 no revelation, or as to which they do not 
 know what revelation He has made, is as 
 natural and inevitable as that men should dis- 
 agree on political questions who have con- 
 sented to live under the same form of civil 
 government. But when the Church has 
 spoken, all submit to her voice, and so unity 
 is preserved. This right of the Church to 
 speak to decide controversies, to make new 
 definitions of faith, and how such a right can 
 be reconciled to perpetual identity of belief, 
 we shall consider shortly. The third unity 
 of the Church is unity of worship, of rite. 
 Go where you will throughout the Catholic 
 Church, you will find one sacrifice : at every 
 hour that " clean oblation " which the pro- 
 phet Malachias foretold should be offered up 
 " from the rising of the sun even to the going 
 down, in every place," is being made on some 
 altar. Everywhere you will find the same 
 
The Church. 139 
 
 sacraments, administered with the same ma- 
 terials and according to the same form ; and 
 everywhere you will find the same hierarchy 
 oi anointed ministers for this office of sacri- 
 fice and for the administration of these sacra- 
 ments. And this triple unity of government, 
 faith, and worship, the Church believes to be 
 of divine tradition, and essential to her exist- 
 ence as a Church. 
 
 " Christ loved the Church," says St. Paul 
 (Eph. v. 25), " and delivered himself up for 
 it, that He might sanctify it . . . that He 
 might present it to Himself a glorious Church, 
 not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, 
 but that it should be holy and without blem- 
 ish." The Church of Christ must be holy. 
 The Catholic Church is holy, first, in her doc- 
 trine, and, secondly, in her fruits of holiness. 
 Formerly many points of her doctrine were 
 assailed as being contrary to holiness. I can- 
 not here enter into the justification of them 
 all in detail. But her enemies, who are al- 
 ways veering from one extreme to the other, 
 
140 The Church. 
 
 have now generally abandoned that ground 
 of attack, and complain rather of the severity 
 and too great austerity of her teaching, She 
 obliges her children to fast, and to confess 
 their sins, to receive the sacraments at cer- 
 tain epochs, to be present at divine service, 
 under pain of mortal sin. She prohibits 
 marriage within certain wide degrees of kin- 
 dred, and will allow no divorce. She obliges 
 us to be as careful of our thoughts as of our 
 words and actions. She has been accused 
 of worshiping Mary as God. This is not 
 true : she honors Mary only as the most 
 favored and powerful of creatures, the crea- 
 ture chosen and made worthy to be the Mo- 
 ther of Him who was the Son of God. She 
 has been accused of granting indulgences as 
 a license to commit sin. This also is not 
 true : the condition, and the motive, of grant- 
 ing indulgences, is that men should repent of 
 sin, change their hearts, and purpose firmly 
 never in any way to offend God grievously. 
 Martin Luther and John Calvin taught that 
 
The Church. 141 
 
 man is justified by faith alone without good 
 works. A lecture delivered by a Protestant, 
 Mr. Baring Gould, and published lately in an 
 English Protestant'journal, shows how crude 
 was Luther's teaching on this all-important 
 point of morality. The Church teaches, with 
 St. Paul, that though a man have faith so as 
 to remove mountains, and have not charity, 
 he is nothing (1 Cor. xiii. 2), and, with St. 
 James, that faith, if it have not works " is 
 dead in itself" (James ii. 17), that conse- 
 quently, according to these apostles, faith can 
 exist without works or charity, but that faith is 
 vivified, and man is sanctified, not by faith, 
 but by divine charity infused into his soul by 
 God, which, expelling by its very presence, 
 sin and all attachment to sin, is alone able to 
 produce fruits of salvation. Protestantism, 
 by opposing the confession of sins, celibacy, 
 and submission to the authority of the Church 
 in interpreting Scripture, has favored man's 
 natural love of self-assertion and personal 
 comfort. The Church, conscious that mans 
 
142 The Church. 
 
 noblest privilege is to obey, and his greatest 
 triumph not only to know himself but to 
 overcome himself, constantly inculcates hu- 
 mility and self-denial. Jesus Christ was 
 poor, " poor and in labors from His youth :" 
 the Church commends voluntary poverty, for 
 the love of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was a 
 virgin and the son of a virgin-mother : the 
 Church commends voluntary chastity, for the 
 love of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was 
 obedient " unto the death, even the death of 
 the cross :" the Church commends voluntary 
 obedience, for the love of Jesus Christ. The 
 Protestant clergyman is forced by no law to 
 risk his life in the spiritual service of his 
 neighbor : the Catholic priest is obliged, un- 
 der pain of the gravest dereliction of his 
 duty, to affront certain death in order to 
 bring succor to the souls committed to his 
 charge ; and what year in this metropolis 
 does not witness additions to the list of these 
 victims of priestly sacrifice? All the mem- 
 bers of the Church cannot be expected to 
 
The Church. 143 
 
 be saints. Christ himself has taught us that 
 many tares will grow up with the good wheat. 
 The children of the Church are in a state of 
 being sanctified : the apostles were not all 
 saints while under the tuition of their divine 
 Master, far from it. But the Church of Christ 
 must bring forth eminent fruits of sanctity. 
 Read the lives of our canonized saints. You 
 do not know, my dear friends, how rigorous 
 the Church is in her examination of the facts 
 concerning those whom she is called upon to 
 pronounce heroic in their virtue. But why 
 speak of saints ? Look at our Sisters of 
 Charity ; look at our missionaries ; where 
 will you find the like outside of the Catholic 
 Church. Where else will you find the Little 
 Sisters of the poor, the Sisters of the Good 
 Shepherd, the Sisters of Mercy, the Carme- 
 lites who spend their lives in prayer? I 
 have yet to hear of whole nations converted 
 by Protestantism. I have yet to hear of 
 Protestant martyrs for the faith among the 
 heathen. Every year the blood of Catholic 
 
144 The Church. 
 
 priests and bishops, and nuns, and native Ca- 
 tholics, waters the pagan lands, like copious 
 rain from Heaven. The Church, therefore, 
 possesses the mark of holiness. 
 
 There remains the note of authority in 
 teaching, which supposes inerrancy, and 
 whence follows exclusiveness. For if Christ 
 gave to His Church authority to teach, He of 
 course authorized it to teach only the truth, 
 and truth is by its nature exclusive, it cannot 
 tolerate error. The Church of Christ is in- 
 tolerant, because it must be infallible. Allow 
 me to dwell on this subject ; it is the only re- 
 maining point to which I shall call your atten- 
 tion to-night. 
 
 The wisdom of God, which " reacheth from 
 end to end mightily and disposeth all things 
 sweetly," obtaining the greatest results by the 
 simplest means, must have established an or- 
 der in His Church suited to the wants and 
 requirements of man's nature. Now man's 
 nature requires an authoritative direction in 
 religion. Man acquires knowledge by in- 
 
The Church, 145 
 
 struction, not by mere reasoning. The igno- 
 rance of the mass of men demands that they 
 should have a guide in whom often they can 
 blindly, but safely, repose. The occupations 
 of the wisest of men necessitate them to obey 
 some teaching voice in the most important 
 matters. The nature of reason in all men ex- 
 acts a higher authority than itself alone ; for it 
 is weak, limited, and subject to error. A child 
 believes on the word of his father, or his teach- 
 er — it would be an abuse to ask him to reason 
 for himself; yet the Christian child must believe. 
 As a social being, man takes in, absorbs, even 
 the prejudices of the country in which he lives, 
 the society which he frequents, the books, the 
 pamphlets and newspapers which he reads. 
 Man is dependent on his fellow-man in a 
 thousand ways, and particularly for the ac- 
 quirement of knowledge : what would we 
 know, and what could we do, if we lived each 
 one in a state of isolation ? Read the history 
 of ancient and of modern, of Asiatic and of 
 European nations : how will you find that 
 
146 The Church, 
 
 philosophy or theology or science has always 
 been taught? By teachers in schools. And 
 in fact how do we do ourselves ? Do we not 
 begin in every study by listening and accept- 
 ing? Everything is full of mysteries, even in 
 the natural order. No human mind is capa- 
 ble, undirected, of grasping all truth in all its 
 details. " They are madmen," said Napoleon 
 Bonaparte, of the self-sufficient philosophers 
 of his day, " who would touch the sky with 
 their hands, and ask the moon for a toy." 
 We confide — and we would be most imprac- 
 tical beings, if we did not — our fortunes, our 
 lives, our dearest interests, to a friend, to an 
 agent, a servant, a lawyer, a physician, a 
 tradesman. Therefore a governing and teach- 
 ing Church is conformable to man's nature 
 and his wants. Therefore it became God's 
 wisdom to establish such a Church. The 
 effects of God's action are innumerable, but 
 the machinery is simple, not complicated, and 
 the laws are few : above all, in His providence, 
 the means to the end are effective. What 
 
The Church. 147 
 
 more simple and efficacious means could He 
 choose for making known His religion than 
 by giving authority to His Church ? )esus 
 Christ could communicate that authoiity to 
 His Church. What motive was there to pre- 
 vent His doing so? Was it because that it 
 would be displeasing to the pride of man ? of 
 powerful kings ? or of rebellious peoples ? 
 God does not love pride ; but He loves that 
 man should obey man, for His sake. " It is 
 like the sin of witchcraft," says the Scripture 
 (1 Kings, xv. 23), "to rebel; and, like the 
 crime of idolatry, to refuse to obey." In the 
 family, and in civil society, God insists on sub- 
 mission, by the law of nature : why not in the 
 religious society ? In barbarous nations, hard- 
 ly any limit is placed to the authority of the 
 parent over his children. In ancient Rome, 
 power of life and death was given, and in 
 modern China is still given, to the father ove ' 
 his child. In the most civilized nations there 
 exists the greatest strength where the bond 
 of authority is strongest. Ours is an age of 
 
148 The Church. 
 
 revolt ; and the consequence is that men are 
 asking with alarm, whither are we drifting ? 
 to what abyss of confusion ? to what chaos ? 
 Was it because man's individual reason re- 
 quired no assistance in finding out God's reve- 
 lation, that authority was not necessary in the 
 Church ? The confusion among those who 
 have adopted this principle is the best answer 
 to such a question. If the mysteries of the 
 natural order are above our power of compre- 
 hension, how must it be with God's revela- 
 tion, which is nothing else but an imperfect 
 manifestation of His own being to our limited 
 intelligence ? 
 
 Historically, it is true that religion has thus 
 always been taught. So it has always been 
 taught in Pagan countries. Even God Him- 
 self so taught man. To Adam he made 
 known His original revelation, and through 
 him to his posterity. He called Noah, and 
 taught him, and gave him laws which were to 
 be transmitted to his descendants. He then 
 called Abraham, and gave him laws. So su- 
 
The Church. 149 
 
 preme was the religious authority of the pa- 
 triarchs, that Isaac did not call in question his 
 father's right to immolate him as a victim to 
 the Almighty. The Jewish law, revealed 
 through Moses, was taught and explained to 
 the people by their priests. " Do whatever 
 the priest of the Levitical race shall teach 
 thee," says the Book of Deuteronomy, (Deut. 
 xxiv. 8.) " They (the priests)," says the Pro- 
 phet Ezechiel, " shall teach my people the dif- 
 ference between holy and profane, and show 
 them how to discern between clean and un- 
 clean. And when there shall be a controversy, 
 they shall stand in my judgments, and shall 
 judge." "The lips of the priest," says the 
 Prophet Malachias (Mai. iii. 7), " shall keep 
 knowledge; and they shall seek the law at 
 his mouth; because he is the angel of the 
 Lord of hosts." Plato felt the need of some 
 such teacher in the world, and exclaimed that 
 it was necessary some God should come and 
 make known to man the truth. Jesus Christ 
 came and taught, and like the self-appointed 
 
i5o The Church. 
 
 scribes and pharisees, but " as one having au- 
 thority/' And He bade His disciples " go and 
 teach." " And this gospel of the kingdom," 
 He said, " shall be preached in the whole 
 world, for a testimony unto all nations ; and 
 then the consummation shall come," (Matth. 
 xxiv. 14.) We may conclude that He intend- 
 ed therefore, that the successors of these apos- 
 ties should continue, like them, and like Him- 
 self, to preach with " authority" until " the 
 consummation shall come." 
 
 This authority was necessary for the sta- 
 bility of his Church, for its unity, its Catho- 
 licity, and its perpetuity. Jesus Christ came 
 to unite all races and classes of men, lords 
 and slaves, the learned and the ignorant, 
 Greek and barbarian, " there shall be one 
 fold " he said, " and one shepherd." There 
 will not be a church for the poor and a 
 church for the rich, one rule for the wise and 
 learned, another for the" ignorant and foolish : 
 rather, in the words of the prophet, " the 
 wolf shall dwell with the lamb ; and the 
 
The Chui'ch. i5i 
 
 leopard shall lie down with the kid ; the calf 
 and the lion and the sheep shall abide to- 
 gether, and a little child shall lead them, (Is. 
 xi. 6.) How could they come to this agree- 
 ment, and how could this understanding last, 
 unless they submitted to some authoritative 
 teacher ? 
 
 But this authority in the Church would be 
 insufficient, unless accompanied by infalli- 
 bility. The Church speaks in the name of 
 God : it represents His person who is the 
 existing truth, and Who can give no commis- 
 sion to teach in His name and to exact be- 
 lief, except for the truth. " The law was 
 given by Moses," says St, John, " grace and 
 truth came by Jesus Christ," (Jn. i. 17.) This 
 is what we want, this is what man requires, 
 for his peace, and for his safety — the truth. 
 For there is question here of our eternity. This 
 is the very object of a Church, to teach men 
 the truth. A Church which may err cannot 
 give us certainty ; and without the assurance 
 -of certainty, we cannot be in peace, we shall 
 
1 52 The Church. 
 
 not consider ourselves safe. Does not St. 
 James tell us that " whosoever shall keep the 
 whole law, but offend in one point, is become 
 guilty of all," (James ii. 10.) Has not the 
 Saviour said, " Enter ye in at the narrow gate ; 
 for wide is the gate and broad is the way 
 that leadeth to destruction, and many there 
 are who enter by it. How narrow is the 
 gate, and strait is the way which leadeth to 
 life ; and few there are who find it! Beware 
 of false prophets," (Matth. vii. 13, i5.) And 
 does not the apostle bid us to " work out 
 our salvation with fear and trembling." Yet 
 " God our Saviour will have all men to be 
 saved and come to the knowledge of the 
 truth," (1 Tim. ii. 4.) It is by the Church 
 that God makes known to us the way in 
 which we are to be saved. Therefore he 
 bids us " hear the Church," treat those who 
 will not listen to the Church " as the heathen 
 and the publican," " mark those who cause 
 dissensions ;" therefore the apostle tells us 
 that " without faith, it is impossible to please 
 
The Church. 153 
 
 God," that " he who cometh to God, must 
 believe." But how can we reasonably hear 
 and believe and obey the Church, unless we 
 be sure that the Church will tell us nothing 
 but the truth ? The Church of Christ must 
 be holy : an essential part of her holiness 
 consists in this, that she cannot deviate 
 from the truth, that she is faithful to her 
 Spouse. " Bear not the yoke together with 
 unbelievers," says St. Paul. " For what par- 
 ticipation hath justice with injustice ? or what 
 fellowship hath light with darkness ? or what 
 concord hath Christ with Belial ? or what 
 part hath the faithful with the unbeliever?" 
 (2 Cor. vi. 14.) The Church that could teach 
 falsehood would cease to be the temple of 
 God and become the temple of idols ; it 
 would be the enemy of Christ, not His friend. 
 We need an infallible Church for the right 
 intelligence of the Scriptures. On this point 
 we have sufficiently insisted already. Ex- 
 perience has shown that neither private judg- 
 ment, nor the private spirit, can interpret 
 
1 54 The Church. 
 
 Scripture consistently. The philosopher 
 Locke confessed that he could not understand 
 St. Paul. St. Peter had warned us long be- 
 fore that St. Paul was " hard to be under- 
 stood," and that in his epistles there are 
 things " which the unlearned and unstable 
 wrest, as also the other Scriptures, to their 
 own destruction," (2 Pet. iii. 16.) And, in 
 general, he had cautioned us to " understand 
 this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture 
 is made by private interpretation," (2 Pet. i. 
 20.) In fact men have abandoned the hope- 
 less task of finding out what they are to be- 
 lieve by the private study of the Bible. If 
 then God did not will that volume to be a 
 sealed book to us, or did not wish that we 
 should be forever " carried about like little 
 children, tossed to and fro with every wind 
 of doctrine," (Eph. iv. 14), "always learning 
 and never attaining to the knowledge of the 
 truth," (2 Tim. iii. 7.) He must have estab- 
 lished in His Church an infallible authority 
 which would be to us as assuring and com- 
 
The Church. i55 
 
 forting a light as the beacon on the rock- 
 bound coast to the mariner who is sailing to 
 his port amidst the darkness and danger of 
 the night. 
 
 The apostles were infallible. This no one 
 denies. Who among Christians would have 
 doubted or contradicted what St. Paul, or St. 
 James, or St. Andrew, might have said ? 
 Therefore that infallibility continues. The 
 same reasons for its existence hold now as 
 held then. Men need as much to be taught 
 now as then, to be told the truth now as 
 then, to possess religious certitude now as 
 then. The constitution of the Church has 
 not changed. Ecclesiastical history tells us 
 of no revolution effected in it after the death 
 of the last Apostle, St. John, nearly a hundred 
 years after Christ. Nay, it would have been 
 a weakness on the part of Christ, who 
 founded a Church for perpetuity, not to have 
 founded it on a solid lasting basis from the 
 beginning such as it was to continue till the 
 end. Infallibility existed in the Synagogue : 
 
1 56 The Church. 
 
 not uninterruptedly, but yet truly, and in a 
 manner suited to the Jewish dispensation. 
 The prophets who appeared from time to 
 time under the Law, having proved their 
 mission from God, either by miracles or by 
 the fulfilment of minor prophecies which 
 they made, were accredited by the people 
 and implicitly believed in the revelations of 
 which they were the authors. So Jesus 
 Christ Himself proved similarly His mission 
 by His miracles and prophecies, and His ful- 
 filment of the prophecies concerning Him, 
 and consequently deserved to be believed in 
 preference to the Jewish priests of His time 
 who possessed no infallibility and were un- 
 faithful to their trust as guardians of the Law. 
 Now the synagogue was the figure, the sha- 
 dow, the adumbration, of the Church : what 
 was imperfect in the synagogue was to be 
 made perfect in the Church, The infallibility 
 of the synagogue was interrupted and inter- 
 mittent ; the infallibility of the Church must 
 be constant and perpetual. 
 
The Church. \5j 
 
 Finally, the promises of infallibility in 
 Scripture are so clear and distinct as hardly 
 to admit of tergiversation. " And Jesus com- 
 ing, spoke to them, saying : All power is 
 given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go ye 
 therefore and teach all nations, baptizing 
 them in the name of the Father and of the 
 Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them 
 to observe all things whatsoever I have com- 
 manded you ; and behold I am with you all 
 days even to the consummation of the world," 
 (Matth. xxviii. 18-20.) " He that believeth 
 and is baptized, shall be saved ; but he that 
 believeth not shall be condemned, " (Mark 
 xvi. 16.) " As the Father hath sent me, I 
 also send you," (Jn. xx. 21.) " He that 
 heareth you, heareth Me ; and he that des- 
 piseth you, despiseth Me ; and he that des- 
 piseth Me, despiseth Him that sent Me," 
 (Luke x. 16.) " We are of God. He that 
 knoweth God, heareth us : he that is not of 
 God, heareth us not. By this we know the 
 spirit of truth, an the spirit of error," (1 Jn. 
 
1 58 The Church. 
 
 iv. 6.) " If he will not hear the Church, let 
 him be to thee as the heathen and the publi- 
 can/' (Matth. xviii. 17.) "The Church of 
 the living God, the house of God, the pillar 
 and ground of the truth," (1 Tim. iii. i5.) 
 " Upon this rock I will build my Church, and 
 the gates of hell shall not prevail against it," 
 (Matth. xvi. 18.) " I will ask the Father, 
 and He shall give you another Paraclete, 
 that he may abide with you forever, the 
 Spirit of truth. . . . He will teach you all 
 things, and bring all things to your mind, 
 whatsoever I shall have said to you," (Jn. xiv. 
 16, 26.) "A glorious Church, not having 
 spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but holy 
 and without blemish," (Eph. v. 27.) The 
 prophecies of the Old Testament concerning 
 the future Christian Church, speak in the 
 strongest terms of its infallibility. " In the 
 last day," says the prophet Isais, " the moun- 
 tain of the house of the Lord shall be pre- 
 pared on the top of mountains, and it shall 
 be exalted above the hills ; and all nations 
 
The Church. i5o 
 
 shall flow unto it. And many people shall 
 go and say, Come and let us go up to the 
 mountain of the Lord, and to the house of 
 the God of Jacob, and He will teach us His 
 ways, a7id we will walk in His paths" (Jn. ii. 
 2, 3.) " We have looked for light, and be- 
 hold darkness ; brightness, and we have 
 walked in the dark. We have groped for 
 the wall ; and, like the blind, we have groped, 
 as if we had no eyes : we have stumbled at 
 noon-day as in darkness : we are in dark 
 places as dead men. And there shall come 
 a Redeemer to Sion, and to them that re- 
 turn from iniquity in Jacob, saith the Lord. 
 This is my covenant with them, saith the 
 Lord : My spirit is in thee, and my word, 
 that I have put in thy mouth, shall not de- 
 part out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth 
 of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy 
 seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth 
 and forever," (Is. 1 ix. 9-21.) " Then shall 
 the eyes of the blind be opened ; and the 
 ears of. the deaf shall be unstopped. Then 
 
160 The Church. 
 
 shall the lame leap as a hart ; and the tongue 
 of the dumb shall be free. . . . And a path 
 and a way shall be there ; and it shall be 
 called the holy way : the unclean shall not 
 pass over it ; and this shall be unto you a 
 straight way, so that fools shall not err there- 
 in" (Is. xxxv.) 
 
 The admonitions of the apostles to the first 
 Christians not to follow strange teachers and 
 to avoid heretics, suppose the existence of in- 
 fallibility in the Church. For infallibility 
 alone can justify intolerance : the mathemati- 
 cian who sees with evidence that the three 
 angles of a triangle are equal to two right an- 
 gles, is in the simple impossibility of tolerat- 
 ing any other opinion ; but the uninstructed 
 man who is ignorant how many right angles 
 are equivalent to a triangle, admits with indif- 
 ference every apparently probable guess on 
 the subject. Now the apostles tell us to 
 mark those who cause dissensions," to 4t avoid" 
 those " reproved as to the faith," not to bid 
 them "God speed you," not to " receive them 
 
The Church, 161 
 
 into the house." " Though an angel from 
 heaven," says St. Paul, " preach a gospel to 
 you beside that which we have preached to 
 you, let him be anathema," (Gal. i. 8.) " Re- 
 member your prelates, . . . imitate their faith. 
 Jesus Christ yesterday, and to-day, and the 
 same forever. Be not carried away with va- 
 rious and strange doctrines," (Heb. xiii. 7-9.) 
 " One Lord, one faith, one baptism . . . that 
 we may not now be little children, tossed to 
 and fro, and carried about with every wind of 
 doctrine," (Eph. iv.) " Know that in the last 
 days shall come . . . men corrupted in mind, 
 reprobate as to the faith, always learning and 
 never coming to the knowledge of the truth 
 .... (who will) resist the truth," (2 Tim. iii.) 
 So St. Peter : " There were false prophets 
 among the people ; even as there shall be 
 lying teachers among you, who shall bring in 
 sects of perdition, and deny the Lord who 
 bought them, bringing upon themselves swift 
 destruction," (2 Pet. ii.) What the Scriptures 
 promised, the Fathers believed. " For my 
 
1 62 The Church. 
 
 part," says St. Augustin, " I would not believe 
 the gospel unless the authority of the Catho- 
 lic Church moved me to it, (nisi me Catholics 
 Ecclesiae commoveret auctoritas.") And St. 
 Athanasius seems to have had the same 
 thought : " The canons of the holy Catholic 
 and Apostolio Church have confirmed to us 
 the four gospels." « How can the traveller 
 walk in the dark ?" says St. Ambrose, " his 
 foot stumbles in the night, unless the moon, 
 as it were the eye of the world, point out the 
 way. Thou also art in the night of the world. 
 Let the Church point out the way to thee." 
 ' There is a royal way," says St. Epiphamius, 
 " which is the Church of God, and the road 
 of truth." " Learn from the Church," says St. 
 Cyril of Jerusalem, " which are the books of 
 
 the Old and New Testaments Guard that 
 
 faith alone which is now delivered to thee by 
 the Church." "The Catholic Church alone 
 retains the true worship," says Lactantius ; 
 " This is the source of truth, this is the dwell- 
 ing of faith." "It is a duty to obey the 
 
The Church. 163 
 
 priests of the Church," says St. Irenaeus, 
 " who hold their succession from the apostles, 
 and who, with that succession, received, agree- 
 ably to the will of the Father, the sure pledge 
 of truth." " Do thou run to the tabernacle 
 of God," says St. Augustin again ; " hold fast 
 to the Catholic Church ; do not depart from 
 the rule of truth, and thou shalt be protected 
 in the tabernacle from the contradiction of 
 tongues." 
 
 The fact is that even those who have de- 
 nied the existence of infallibility, have felt 
 themselves obliged to admit it in some form, 
 and practically act as though they themselves 
 enjoyed its possession. At first, the reform- 
 ers denied all infallibility. Then, seeing the 
 necessity of adopting some standard of belief 
 in order to keep up at least a semblance of 
 union among themselves, they declared that 
 though all Churches might err on non-funda- 
 mental points of the Christian religion, the 
 whole Church could not be mistaken in fun- 
 
1 &A The Church. 
 
 damental points, on account of their being too 
 clearly expressed in Scripture. Now here 
 was an admission of infallibility ; and, at the 
 same time, a contradiction of their original doc- 
 trine, which is a sure sign of error. But it 
 did not help them much ; for they continued 
 to differ and divide among themselves, on 
 such fundamental points as the divinity of 
 Jesus Christ, the existence of three persons in 
 God, the real presence of Christ in the Sacra- 
 ment, the necessity of baptism, the eternity 
 of hell, etc. Meanwhile, every Protestant 
 father of a family has acted as though his 
 Church were infallible ; he has taught his chil- 
 dren what they were to believe, he has led 
 them to his place of worship, and (which 
 shows at least that he thought he was infalli- 
 bly sure that that was wrong), if any one of 
 these children, following the Protestant rule 
 of judging and choosing for himself, determin- 
 ed to re-enter the old Catholic Church from 
 which his fathers had gone out, he has shown 
 
The Church. i65 
 
 any thing but pleasure at the fact. Protes- 
 tants, as well as Catholics, have been intoler- 
 ant and persecuted. They have excommuni- 
 cated and anathematized ; and if, at the pre- 
 sent day, a more liberal spirit is gaining 
 ground, it is due, partly no doubt to a change 
 of manners, but partly also to the fact that, 
 while the Catholic Church is making herself 
 better known by the vigorous life which is 
 within her, outside the Church religious zeal 
 has been spent and is dead, and in its place 
 there is rising up a rank vegetation of indif- 
 ference and infidelity. So long as the reli- 
 gious principle and the fear of God is strong 
 in a person educated in any Protestant sect, 
 that person, though he knows them to lay 
 claim to no inerrancy, will fear even to doubt 
 the word of the ministers of his sect, lest he 
 should go astray ; such is the strength of that 
 instinct of our nature which tells us that we 
 must depend on authority to know the way 
 to salvation. In fact, no cause acts more 
 powerfully to prevent wavering souls, too 
 
1 66 The Churcn. 
 
 timid to follow their own conviction and act 
 on the Protestant principle of judging for 
 one's self, from entering the true fold of 
 Christ, than the authority of those to whom 
 they naturally adhere from being accustomed 
 to look up to them as teachers. 
 
 Nevertheless the Roman Catholic Church 
 alone openly lays claim to the enjoyment of 
 this privilege of infallibility. This very claim 
 itself ought to secure for her the sympathy 
 of every earnest religious soul. For the ex- 
 istence of infallibility in the Church is a de- 
 sideratum of the human heart. We all wish 
 to know the truth. Especially where there 
 is question of our eternal salvation, we wish 
 to be able to rest, to repose in peace ; and 
 that we cannot do, but in the assured posses- 
 sion of the knowledge of the truth ; not in 
 doubt, not in inquiry, not in probability, not 
 in opinion. Has God appointed one particu- 
 lar way in which I am to save my soul ? and 
 is it in my power to find that one only true 
 sure way ? and am I obliged to seek for it, 
 
The Church. 167 
 
 and walk by it ? * I am a sinner : have my 
 sins been forgiven me ? how am I to assure 
 myself that my sins will be forgiven me ? 
 Has God appointed somewhere certain 
 particular means by which He will com- 
 municate to me strength to persevere in His 
 service, to keep His law, and finally reach 
 heaven ? am I obliged to make use of these 
 means ? Here are questions which the soul 
 naturally puts to itself, and to which it de- 
 sires to know the true answer. Except 
 where our will is perverted by passion or 
 prejudice or some earthly interest, we always 
 desire to know as much truth as we can. If 
 an angel from heaven would come and re- 
 veal to us all about the solar system, or the 
 mysteries of geology, or the true history of 
 past times, or the art of making money, we 
 would rejoice and clap our hands. But es- 
 pecially in this matter ought we to pray for 
 some one to appear to us who will tell us 
 categorically and peremptorily the truth. 
 For it will not suffice to say : God will not 
 
t68 The Church. 
 
 condemn me for serving Him in any good 
 enough way. You are not sure of that ; you 
 may be mistaken ; therefore you cannot be in 
 peace. It will not do to be told you have 
 the Bible ; you do not know what to believe 
 in the Bible, or if you are to believe all that is 
 in the Bible ! you do not understand it all, 
 and you do not know how far you are 
 obliged to understand it, unless the Church 
 tells you ; you may say, I am an ignorant 
 man, who has not much time for study, I am 
 not wiser than the eunuch of the Queen of 
 Ethiopia, who declared, " How can I under- 
 stand, unless some one show me ? " 
 
 These questions of the soul require a posi- 
 tive answer, in order that it may be a satisfac- 
 tory one. None but an infallible Church can 
 give such an answer. Therefore none but an 
 infallible Church can satisfy the wants of the 
 human heart as well as of the human mind. 
 Therefore such a Church is worthy of the 
 conception of God. For God is good, He is 
 one, He is true. He is a God of union, of 
 
The Church. 169 
 
 order, of beauty, of strength. His goodness 
 and His wisdom would not allow Him to 
 leave His creature man in a horrid state of 
 doubt. His wisdom and His power would 
 lead Him to give to man the efficacious 
 means for avoiding error. His dignity and 
 majesty require that, if He make a revela- 
 tion, He should also have it published and 
 known, and insist on its being received and 
 believed in every point and jot, and tittle ; 
 therefore that He should appoint an authority 
 to expound it with inerrancy, and that His 
 providence should watch over this authority, 
 so as to secure its continuing to ever faith- 
 fully discharge its function. 
 
 This is what the Catholic Church under- 
 stands by infallibility : in the words of an 
 eminent Catholic American, "simply pro- 
 tection against forgetting, misunderstanding, 
 or misstating." We do not say that the 
 Church is inspired when she speaks — though 
 we believe that the Spirit of God watches 
 over and directs her. All the heads of the 
 
170 The Church. 
 
 Church, not only individually, but even col- 
 lectively, could, absolutely speaking, be mis- 
 taken, did not God protect them from error. 
 But we believe, in virtue of the promise of 
 Christ to His disciples, that when the heads, 
 that is, the bishops of the Church, in union 
 with the Supreme Pontiff, the Vicar of Christ, 
 on earth, do solemnly declare that such a 
 doctrine is and has always been the belief of 
 the Church, and is contained in the deposit 
 of revelation confided by Christ to His 
 apostles — we believe, that true as the word 
 of God, they cannot be mistaken ; that God 
 will not let them, even if they wished it, 
 speak in contradiction to the truth. Until 
 the Church has thus spoken by the voice of 
 her pastors, Catholics are at liberty to dis- 
 cuss unsettled points. Since the apostles 
 did not write out in detail all the articles of 
 the Christian religion, it is clear that many 
 doubts will arise in the minds of the faithful 
 as to whether such or such a matter be con- 
 tained in the revelation, some affirming, 
 
The Church. 171 
 
 others denying. But we have a tribunal to 
 which we can appeal ; and when the Church 
 has spoken, all submit to her decision : if 
 any do nqt, they cease to be Catholics. The 
 Church does not then make a new revela- 
 tion : she simply declares what has always 
 been the revelation ; what may have been 
 obscured in the minds of some of her chil- 
 dren ; but which God would never allow her 
 to define unless she had received it handed 
 down from the Fathers of the faith. Thus, 
 until the Council of the Vatican, the opinion 
 was not yet condemned of those who believed 
 that the Pope was infallible only when his 
 declarations had been approved by the bishops 
 of the Church. I am not going to enter into 
 the question of papal infallibility. Every 
 Roman Catholic now believes that the infalli- 
 bility of the Church resides in the person of 
 the successor of St. Peter : not, as I have 
 said, in the sense that he can invent new 
 dogmas, or, as it were, act separatedly from 
 the Church ; but because her faith will al- 
 
172 The Church. 
 
 ways be the same as his faith, and he, in his 
 quality of head, will never, by God's protec- 
 tion, fail to proclaim exactly and opportunely 
 the revealed truth in which the body of the 
 Church has always believed. 
 
 But I would call your attention to two 
 facts in connection with this discussion. The 
 first is this : though the opposition to the 
 definition of this dogma in the Council was 
 great and vehement, still not one of the 900 
 bishops of the Roman Catholic Church has 
 refused his submission to the decision so- 
 lemnly pronounced in Rome on the 18th of 
 last July. The second fact is, that it was 
 found impossible to produce one instance in 
 which the See of Peter had deflected from 
 the faith. The case of Pope Honorius was 
 the only one which offered some plausible 
 grounds for argument ; and how little could 
 be made out of that case was shown from the 
 fact, that in the document in which Honorius 
 was supposed to have taught error, he gave 
 no doctrinal decision, that the document it- 
 
The Church. 173 
 
 self was in all probability a forgery of his 
 enemies, and that this Pope, in other writings, 
 had declared the true Christian belief. 
 
 In the Catholic Church, therefore, the Ro- 
 ' man Church claims infallibility, and she has 
 vindicated her claim, when called to undergo 
 the strictest examination of her history. 
 " Happy Church !" we can exclaim to it with 
 Tertullian, " which the great apostles fully 
 impregnated at the same time with their 
 blood and w r ith all their doctrine !" But the 
 position of the Church of Rome in the Church 
 Catholic, will be the subject of our next 
 lecture. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 The Pope. 
 
 The Catholic Church alone possesses those 
 qualities which were appointed by Jesus 
 Christ to be the distinctive marks of His true 
 Church. But which is the Catholic Church ? 
 Do not all Christian churches belong to, and 
 form part of, the Church Catholic ? Is not 
 the Greek Church a portion of the Catholic 
 Church ? And are there not persons in the 
 Anglican body, and in its sister-communion, 
 the Protestant Episcopal Church of America, 
 who call themselves Catholic ? Or is the Ca- 
 tholic Church composed only and exclusively, 
 as I am assuming in these lectures, of those 
 churches which are in active communion with 
 the See of Rome ? Is the Roman Catholic 
 Church the Catholic Church? 
 
 The answer to this question will furnish us 
 
The Pope. 175 
 
 with another, still more distinct, sign, by 
 which we can recognize where the Christian 
 Church really is ? It is clear that if the well- 
 known pretension of the bishops of the 
 Church of Rome to govern the universal 
 Church be invalid, all the churches which ad- 
 mit it would be in error, and could no longer 
 claim that inerrancy of which we have spoken 
 as an attribute of the true Church of Christ. 
 Let us then examine this question : Is actual 
 communion with, and subordination to, the 
 See of Rome, a necessary condition for be- 
 longing to the Church ? or, in other words, 
 did Christ give to St. Peter and his successors 
 in the episcopal seat, a supremacy of jurisdic- 
 tion over his whole Church ? 
 
 That the twelve Apostles possessed su- 
 preme authority in the Church is admitted by 
 all to follow from certain texts of Scripture. 
 The Church, according to St. Paul (Eph. ii. 
 19-22), was " built upon the foundation of the 
 apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself 
 being: the chief corner-stone." And 1 Cor. 
 
 & 
 
* 76 The Pope. 
 
 xii. 27, 28, " And God indeed hath set some in ' 
 the Church, first apostles,, secondly, etc." In 
 the Apocalypse (xxi. 14), « And the wall of 
 the city had twelve foundations ; and in them 
 the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the 
 lamb." Matth. xxviii. 18, 19: "All power is 
 given to me ... go ye therefore and teach all 
 nations." Now, according to the argument 
 of Origen, if what is attributed to the twelve 
 in general, is said in a special and singular 
 manner of one, then it belongs in a superior 
 and excellent manner to that one. We have 
 therefore to inquire whether what was accord- 
 ed to the apostles collectively, has been grant- 
 ed in a separate and distinct form to St. 
 Peter. 
 
 But before examining the passages wherein 
 Christ appears to confer on St. Peter an au- 
 thority superior to that of the other apostles, 
 let us consider whether scriptural analogy 
 would lead to suppose that he would select 
 one person to be the chief ruler of His Church. 
 The old law, according to St. Paul, (Heb. vii. 
 
The Pope. T yy 
 
 19,) " brought nothing to perfection, but" was . 
 " an introduction of a better hope, by which 
 we approach to God ... a better .testament 
 which is established on better promises," (viii. 
 6.) That is, the old law was the type, the 
 figure, the shadow of the new. The new was 
 to be the complement and perfection of the 
 old. Whatever imperfection we find, there- 
 fore, in the old law, we need not expect it to 
 exist in the new ; whatever perfection we find 
 in the old law, we must expect to see existing 
 in a still more perfect state in the new. Now 
 Moses, the law-giver of the Jews, the image 
 of Christ, enjoyed both spiritual and temporal 
 supremacy over the people. " Upon the chair 
 of Moses," says our Lord, " have sitten the 
 scribes and pharisees ; all therefore whatso- 
 ever they shall say unto you, observe and do 
 it," (Matth. xxiii. 2.) " Moses and Aaron 
 among His priests," says the Psalm xcix. 
 After Moses, the spiritual and the temporal 
 power were separated, by Moses' own ap- 
 pointment, in accordance with the Divine will. 
 

 178 The Pope, 
 
 To Joshua he gave one part of his authority, 
 the temporal ; " Take Joshua," says God to 
 him, in the Book of Numbers, " the son of 
 Nun, and put thy hand upon him, and he shall 
 stand before Eleazar, the priest, and all the 
 multitude ; and thou shalt give him part of thy 
 glory," (Num. xxvii. 18, etc.) But the spirit- 
 ual portion of his authority, all vested in Elea- 
 zar, the son of Aaron, the brother of Moses, 
 and was from him to descend, in lineal suc- 
 cession, to the first born of his children. Now 
 Moses and Aaron were of the tribe of Levi. 
 So that the high-priesthood, the spiritual su- 
 premacy in Israel, was limited to one line in 
 one family of one tribe, and deposited in the 
 person of one man till the end of the Law. 
 In the place I have quoted from, the Lord 
 continues to Moses : " If anything be to be 
 done, Eleazar the priest shall consult the Lord 
 for (Joshua). He, and all the children of 
 Israel with him, and the rest of the multitude, 
 shall go out and go in at his word," (Num. 
 xxvii. 21.) And, in the third chapter of the 
 
The Pope. 179 
 
 Book of Numbers, Eleazar is called " the 
 prince of the princes of the Levites, Eleazar, 
 the son of Aaron the priest," (v. 32.) In the 
 second Book of Paralipomenon, or Chronicles, 
 this distinction of supreme spiritual and su- 
 preme temporal authority is again clearly spe- 
 cified : " And Ananias the priest, your high- 
 priest, shall be chief in the things which re- 
 gard God ; and Zabadias, the son of Ismahel, 
 who is ruler in the house of Juda, shall be 
 over those matters which belong to the king's 
 office," (2 Paral. or Chron. xix. 11.) The 
 Jews therefore had one temporal ruler, judge 
 or king (God seems to have cared little 
 which), and one supreme spiritual ruler, the 
 high-priest. Now Christ, of whom Moses 
 was the figure, had " all power in heaven and 
 on earth." That He should have left to tem- 
 poral rulers their authority, but that He 
 should have appointed one supreme spiritual 
 ruler in His Church, as the thing about which 
 He cared the most, is what we are led to ex- 
 pect from analogy with the inspired conduct 
 
1 80 The Pope. 
 
 of Moses. For this unity of spiritual head 
 and government in the synagogue was a per- 
 fection, not a defect, and consequently was to 
 be preserved in the Church of which the syn- 
 agogue was the first rough draft. That it is 
 a perfection, is clear from the fact that all 
 mankind have always considered it such, as is 
 attested by the conduct of all nations in choos- 
 ing to have one ruler, king, emperor or pre- 
 sident : no army has ever yet fought well 
 under two generals, and it never yet has been 
 heard of that one ship had two captains ; the 
 necessity of electing one chief has induced 
 even pirates, the most lawless of men, to sub- 
 ject themselves to a despotic ruler, as neces- 
 sary both for their existence and for their 
 success. 
 
 The first remarkable thing we find about St. 
 Peter in Scripture, is his prominence among the 
 disciples of our Lord. St. Matth. (ch. x.), gives 
 a list of the apostles : " And the names of the 
 twelve apostles are these : The first Simon, 
 who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, 
 
The Pope, 1 8 1 
 
 etc." In age and in vocation to the apostle- 
 ship Andrew was the first ; why then is Peter 
 called the first? St. Mark, (ch. iii.,j) and St. 
 Luke, (ch. vi.,) give us also a catalogue of the 
 names of the apostles, both beginning also 
 with Peter, and, like St. Matthew, naming last 
 the traitor Judas, while the names of the other 
 apostles are related in indifferent order. And 
 everywhere else, and in everything else, Peter 
 is always first, not only by his own prompti- 
 tude and the favor of his Master during his 
 Master's life, but, what is to be remarked, 
 after his Master's death. He is the first to 
 propose the election of another apostle, to 
 preach the Gospel in Jerusalem, to speak be- 
 fore the Sanhedrim, to condemn Ananias and 
 Saphira, to preach to the Gentiles in the per- 
 son of Cornelius, the first to visit all the 
 Churches (Acts, ix. 32), — to see him Paul 
 goes to Jerusalem ; it is he who opens the 
 Council of Jerusalem, and proposes the subject 
 of deliberation. So he had been the first 
 among the disciples to profess faith in the di- 
 
1 82 The Pope. 
 
 vinity of Jesus Christ, the first to see Him 
 risen from the dead, first in the obligation im- 
 posed to exercise divine charity. This con- 
 stantly obtrusive priority of Peter is so strik- 
 ing as to oblige Barrow, an Anglican writer 
 against the Papacy, to speak of it in the fol- 
 lowing terms: "It is indeed observable that 
 upon all occasions our Lord signified a parti- 
 cular respect to him, before the rest of his col- 
 leagues ; for to him more frequently than to 
 any of them, He directed His discourse ; unto 
 him, by a kind of anticipation, He granted or 
 promised those gifts and privileges which He 
 meant to confer on them all ; him He did as- 
 sume as spectator and witness of His glorious 
 transfiguration ; him He picked out as com- 
 panion and attendant on Him in His grievous 
 agony ; his feet He first washed ; to him He 
 did first discover Himself after His resurrec- 
 tion (as Paul implieth), and with him then He 
 did entertain most discourse, in especial man- 
 ner recommending to him the pastoral care 
 of the Church ; by which manner of proceed- 
 
The Pope. i%<, 
 
 ing our Lord may seem to have constituted 
 St. Peter the first in order among the apos- 
 tles, or sufficiently to have hinted His mind 
 for their direction, admonishing them by His 
 example to render unto him a special defer- 
 ence." St. Francis of Sales is more eloquent 
 on the same subject : " Is the Church likened 
 to a house?" says he; '-'"It is placed on the 
 foundation of a rock, which is Peter. Will 
 you represent it under the form of a family ? 
 You behold our Redeemer paying the tribute 
 as its Master, and after Him comes Peter as 
 His representative." — He alludes to the pas- 
 sage in St. Matthew (Matth. xvii. 26), where 
 St. Peter is told to take up a fish, " and when 
 thou hast opened its mouth thou shalt find a 
 piece of money ; that take and give unto 
 them for Me and thee/ 1 which excited the 
 jealousy of the other apostles, for the evan- 
 gelist tells us immediately afterwards that "at 
 that hour, they came unto Jesus saying : Who 
 is the greatest -in the kingdom of heaven?" 
 — To continue with St. Francis : ." Is the 
 
1 84 The Pope. 
 
 Church a bark ? Peter is its pilot, and it is 
 our Redeemer who instructs him. Is the 
 doctrine by which we are drawn from the 
 gulf of sin represented by a fisher's net ? It 
 is Peter who casts it ; it is Peter who draws 
 it ; the other disciples lend their aid ; but it is 
 Peter who presents the fishes to our Re- 
 deemer. Is the Church represented by an 
 embassy? St. Peter is at its head. Do you 
 prefer the figure of a kingdom ? St. Peter 
 carries its keys. In fine, will you have it 
 shadowed under the symbol of a flock and a 
 fold ? St. Peter is the shepherd and universal 
 pastor under Jesus Christ. ,, All this is very 
 remarkable indeed. And wherever there is 
 question of the disciples together, St. Peter is 
 mentioned in a peculiar manner : " Peter and 
 they that were with him," — " Simon and they 
 that were with him," — " Peter standing up 
 with the eleven," — " Tell the disciples and 
 Peter." 
 
 But, strange as all these passages might be 
 as corroboratory proof, since the Spirit of 
 
The Pope. \ 85 
 
 God, which does nothing without a worthy 
 motive, could not inspire the sacred writers to 
 insist so much on such a point but for some 
 deep meaning,— is there no direct narration 
 in Scripture of the transmission by the found- 
 er of the Christian religion of supreme Spirit- 
 ual authority in His Church to the Apostle 
 St. Peter ? It is hardly probable that some- 
 thing so important should have been passed 
 over by the four historians of the life of Christ. 
 Nor has it. We have in those sacred biogra- 
 phies, first, a promise of that transmission ; 
 secondly, a reminder of that promise ; and 
 thirdly, the execution of the promise. 
 
 In the sixteenth chapter of St. Matthew, 
 verse the thirteenth, Jesus, coming to the 
 neighborhood of Casarea-Philippi, " asked 
 His disciples, saying: Whom do men say 
 that the Son of Man is? And they said: 
 Some John the Baptist, and some Elias, and 
 others Jeremias, or one of the prophets. Jesus 
 saith to them : But whom do you say that I 
 am ? Simon Peter answered, and said : Thou 
 
1 86 The Pope. 
 
 art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And 
 Jesus answering, said to him : Blessed art 
 thou, Simon Bar-Jona : because flesh and 
 blood have not revealed it to thee, but My 
 Father who is in heaven. And I say to thee : 
 Thou art Peter (a rock) ; and upon this rock 
 I will build My Church, and the gates of hell 
 shall not prevail against it. And I will give 
 to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. 
 And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, 
 it shall be bound also in heaven ; and what- 
 soever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be 
 loosed also in heaven." These remarkable 
 and strangely energetical expressions of Jesus 
 Christ must have some meaning, and, accord- 
 ing to a primary canon of sound criticism, 
 they must be taken in their obvious natural 
 common sense meaning, if that be possible, 
 as we must give both Christ and St. Matthew, 
 his historian, credit for good sense. " In our 
 life," says St. Bernard, " we seem to do 
 many things by chance or by necessity. But 
 Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of 
 
The Pope. jgy 
 
 God, could not be subject to necessity or act 
 by chance {i.e. without an object). For what 
 necessity can force the power of 1 God? Or 
 what can the wisdom of God do by chance ? 
 Therefore whatever He did, whatever He said, 
 whatever He suffered, we must believe it to 
 have been full of deep mysteries, with an in- 
 tent of our salvation.'' But ought we not 
 precisely to give to these words some deep 
 mysterious signification different from the li- 
 teral one ? Can we suppose that Christ really 
 meant to say that Peter was the rock on which 
 He built His Church, that He gave to him the 
 keys of the kingdom of heaven, that whatso- 
 ever he bound would be bound in heaven, 
 and whatsoever he unloosed would be un- 
 loosed in heaven ? How could such power 
 be given to man ? Is not Christ himself the 
 chief corner-stone, and has not the Scripture 
 said that " no man can lay another foundation 
 but that which is laid — which is Christ Jesus, " 
 (i Cor. iii. 9,) as " there is no other name under 
 heaven given to men whereby we must be 
 
1 88 The Pope. 
 
 saved?" (Acts, iii. 12.) As to the impossi- 
 bility of conferring such power on man, that 
 was the difficulty made by the Jews against 
 Christ himself; How can a man have power 
 to forgive sins ? St. Bernard has said, in 
 answer : " What necessity can force the power 
 of God ? or what can the wisdom of God do 
 by chance ?" What can be impossible to God 
 which His wisdom judges a suitable means 
 to some end worthy of Himself? It cannot 
 therefore be said that it was impossible for 
 Christ to confer this power on St. Peter. St. 
 Leo (who flourished in the fifth century) re- 
 solves for us the objection drawn from the 
 apparent contradiction of establishing the 
 Church on another foundation besides Christ. 
 " As my Father," he says, explaining the words 
 of Jesus, " has manifested my Divinity to 
 thee, I make known to thee thy excellence: 
 for thou art Peter, that is, as I am the invisi- 
 ble rock, the corner-stone, who make both 
 one, I the foundation, beside which no m n 
 can lay another, — nevertheless thou also art a 
 
The Pope. 189 
 
 rock, because thou art strengthened by my 
 power, so that those things which belong to 
 me by nature are common to thee with me 
 by participation," Christ therefore remains in- 
 deed " the chief corner-stone," but Peter also, 
 by the communication of His virtue, is made 
 a secondary stone, on which the Church is 
 likewise to be built. It was in this secondary 
 sense that the Apostles also were called the 
 foundation of the Church. (Eph, ii.) 
 
 We must remember that Christ was the 
 Word of God, for which to speak is to do, 
 which out of nothing created the world. " Let 
 there be light," said God, "and there was 
 light." So if Christ promises to Peter the 
 stability of a rock, we may be sure that in 
 Peter will be produced the stability of a rock. 
 And it will be a perpetual stability ; for as 
 Christ's Church is to be perpetual, it must rest 
 on a perpetual foundation. This perpetuity 
 is to be found in the line of St. Peter's succes- 
 sors in the See of Rome. In that city St. Peter 
 lived and governed for a quarter of a century 
 
190 The Pope. 
 
 and died ; " unless an Angel from heaven 
 came down to reveal to us the contrary," says 
 Bossuet, " it is patent that his successor in 
 that See and no other is the inheritor of his 
 authority over the whole Church." No other 
 Apostle left a permanent line of successors 
 after him ; whereas the early Fathers con- 
 stantly appealed to the list of Bishops in Rome, 
 from Peter down to their own time, in proof 
 of the unity and apostolicity of the Church. 
 " As it would be tedious to enumerate the 
 whole list of successors," says St. Irenaeus, a 
 bishop of the second century, " I shall confine 
 myself to that of Rome, the greatest and 
 most ancient, and most illustrious Church, 
 founded by the glorious Apostles Peter and 
 Paul, receiving from them her doctrine which 
 was announced to all men, and which, through 
 the succession of her Bishops is come down to 
 us. To this Church, on account of its supe- 
 rior headship, every other must have recourse, 
 that is, the faithful of all countries ; in which 
 Church has been preserved the doctrine de- 
 
The Pope. 1 9 1 
 
 livered by the Apostles. They therefore, 
 having founded and instructed this Church, 
 committed the administration thereof to Li- 
 nus. To him succeeded Anacletus ; then, in 
 the third place, Clement, who had himself seen 
 and conversed with those Apostles. To Cle- 
 ment succeeded Evaristus ; to him Alexander ; 
 and then, the sixth from the Apostles, Sixtus, 
 who was followed by Telesphorus, Hyginus, 
 Pius and Anicetus. But Soter having suc- 
 ceeded Anicetus, Eleutherius, the twelfth from 
 the Apostles, now governs the Church. By 
 such regular succession has the doctrine de- 
 livered by the Apostles descended to us ; and 
 the proof is most clear that it is one and the 
 same vivifying faith, which, coming from the 
 Apostles, is at this time maintained and 
 taught." "In the Catholic Church," says St. 
 Augustin, two centuries later, " many are the 
 considerations which keep me in her bosom ; 
 the assent of nations ; her authority first 
 established by miracles ; the succession of 
 pastors from the chair of Peter, to whom the 
 
192 The Pope. 
 
 Lord committed the care of feeding his flock, 
 down to the present Bishop ; lastly, the name 
 itself of Catholic. These so many and so great 
 ties bind the believing man to the Catholic 
 Church. ... If we come to the succession 
 of Bishops, how much safer is it to adhere to 
 that which we can trace to the Apostle St. 
 Peter? For to Peter succeeded Linus; to 
 Linus, Clement ; to Clement, Anacletus, etc. ; 
 and," naming the last, "to Siricius Anastasius." 
 And to-day we could say : to Anastasius, 
 Pius ; and to Pius, Leo ; and to Leo, Pius 
 again ; and to Pius, Gregory ; and to the 
 sixteenth Gregory succeeded Pius IX., who 
 is the 2 58th pope from St. Peter. 
 
 Listen to the manner in which the eloquent 
 Bossuet, in his sermon on the Unity of the 
 Church, comments on this promise made to 
 St. Peter : — " ' He called his disciples,' says 
 the Gospel ; here are all : ' and among them 
 he chose twelve.' This is a first separation, 
 when the Apostles are chosen. ' And these 
 are the names of the twelve Apostles: the 
 
The Pope. 193 
 
 first Simon, who is called Peter.' Here is a 
 second separation ; St. Peter is set at the 
 head of the Church, and called for that reason 
 by the name of Peter, ' which Jesus Christ,' 
 says St. Mark, ' had given him,' in order to 
 prepare, as you will see, the work which he 
 had in mind to accomplish, namely, to raise 
 •all his building on that stone .... To dispose 
 him for this honor, Jesus Christ, who knows 
 that faith in Himself is the foundation of his 
 Church, inspires him with a faith worthy to be 
 the basis of that admirable building. ' Thou 
 art the Christ, the Son of the living God.' By 
 this bold declaration of faith, he draws to 
 himself the inviolable promise which makes 
 him the foundation of the Church. The word 
 of Jesus Christ, who out of nothing makes 
 what pleases him, gives this strength to a 
 mortal. He marks out Peter personally, and 
 by the new name which he gives him. It is 
 one who speaks to one : Jesus Christ, the Son 
 of God, to Simon, son of Jonas ; Jesus Christ, 
 who is the true stone, strong of Himself, to 
 
194 The Pope. 
 
 Simon who is only the stone by the strength 
 which Jesus Christ imparts to him. It is to 
 him that Jesus Christ speaks, and in speaking 
 acts on him, and stamps on him His own im- 
 movableness. 'And 1/ he says, ' say unto 
 thee, Thou art Peter, (a rock) ; and,' he adds, 
 ' upon this rock I will build My Church ; and/ 
 he concludes, 'the gates of hell shall not pre- 
 vail against it.' .... Say not, think not, that 
 this ministry of Peter terminates with him ; 
 that which is to serve for support to an eternal 
 Church can never have an end. Peter will 
 live in his successors. Peter will always speak 
 in his chair. This is what the Fathers say. 
 This is what six hundred and fifty bishops at 
 the Council of Chalcedon confirm. . . . After 
 having said to Peter, the eternal preacher of 
 the faith, * Thou art Peter, and upon this rock 
 I will build my Church,' he adds : ' And I will 
 give to thee the keys of the kingdom of 
 heaven/ Thou who hast the prerogative of 
 preaching the faith, thou shalt have likewise 
 the keys which mark the authority of gov- 
 
The Pope. 195 
 
 ernment. < What thou shalt bind orr earth, 
 shall, be bound in heaven ; and what thou 
 shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven/ 
 All are subjected to these keys y all, my bre- 
 thren, kings and nations, pastors and flocks ; 
 we declare it with joy, for we love unity, and 
 hold obedience to be our glory." The keys 
 have always been a symbol of authority ; in 
 old times, when rulers entered a city, they 
 were presented with the keys of the place. 
 " I will lay the key of the house of David 
 upon his shoulders," says the prophet Isaias 
 of Eliacim who was a figure of Christ (Is. xxii. 
 22) ; " he shall open and none shall shut, and 
 he shall shut and none shall open." " These 
 things saith the Holy One and the True One, 
 who hath the key of David," writes the author 
 of the Apocalypse, or book of Revelations 
 (Apoc. iii. 7) ; " he that openeth and no man 
 shutteth, shutteth and no man openeth." 
 1 And Peter' continues Bossuet, quoting St. 
 Augustin, " ' who in the honor of his primacy 
 represented the whole church,' receives also 
 
1 96 The Pope. 
 
 the first, and the only one at first, the keys 
 which should afterwards be communicated to 
 all the rest ; in order that we may learn, ac- 
 cording to the doctrine of a holy bishop of 
 the church of Gaul, that the ecclesiastical au- 
 thority, first established in the person of one 
 alone, has only been diffused on the condition 
 of being always brought back to the principle 
 of its unity, and that all those who shall have 
 to exercise it ought to hold themselves insep- 
 arably united to the same chair. This is that 
 Roman Chair so celebrated by the Fathers, 
 which they have vied with each other in ex- 
 alting as ' the chieftainship of the Apostolic 
 See ;' ' the superior chiefship ;' ' the source of 
 unity ;' ' that most holy throne which has the 
 headship over all the churches of the world ;' 
 the head of the Episcopate, the chiefship of 
 the universal Church ;' ' the head of the pas- 
 toral honor to the world ;' 4 the head of the 
 members ;' ' the single chair in which all keep 
 unity/ In these words you hear St. Optatus, 
 St. Augustin, St. Cyprian, St. Irenaeus, St. 
 
The Pope. 197 
 
 Prosper, St. Avitus, St. Theodoret, the Council 
 of Chalcedon, and the rest ; Africa, Gaul, 
 Greece, Asia, the East and the West toge- 
 ther." 
 
 These extracts will suffice, I believe, to 
 show that the words in the sixteenth chap- 
 ter of St. Matthew, addressed by our Lord 
 to St. Peter, 'Thou art Peter, and on this 
 rock I will build my church, and the gates of 
 hell shall not prevail against it ; and I will 
 give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, M 
 — have always been understood by the 
 Fathers of the Church to signify what they 
 literally implied, namely : a promise of su- 
 preme spiritual jurisdiction over all Christians. 
 
 This promise Christ afterwards renewed 
 on a most solemn occasion. On the eve 
 of His passion, on that night in which He 
 delivered Himself up, the Lord warned His 
 disciples of the danger there would be for 
 them of being- scandalized in Him, of the 
 efforts which Satan was about to make 
 to destroy in their hearts that faith, without 
 
198 The Pope. 
 
 which, he knew, " it is impossible to please 
 God." " And the Lord said," turning to 
 Peter: " Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath 
 desired to have you (all), that he may sift 
 you (speaking in the plural number) as 
 wheat ; but I have prayed for thee (speaking 
 in the singular number), that thy faith fail 
 net ; and thou, when thou art converted, con- 
 firm thy brethren," — or perhaps more liter- 
 ally, " applying thyself to it, confirm thy 
 brethren." This grace of stability in faith 
 (though Peter fell grievously in moral con- 
 duct), during the scandal of the passion, the 
 Fathers have understood to have been grant- 
 ed to him in virtue of the promise of supreme 
 spiritual power in the Church, and to contain 
 a confirmation of that promise, as the last 
 words imply, " confirm thy brethren." As 
 priests and as bishops, Peter and the other 
 apostles were equal ; they were " brethren " 
 in the sacerdotal and episcopal order and sa- 
 crament. But, while the other successors of 
 the apostles are bishops, each in his own 
 
The Pope. 199 
 
 diocess, the successor of St. Peter enjoys un- 
 limited jurisdiction over the whole Church, 
 and his duty is to " confirm " his brethren, 
 even in the Episcopacy, when they have need 
 of being confirmed and strengthened. 
 
 Finally, our Saviour accomplished His pro- 
 mise by the donation of supreme authority in 
 the Church to St. Peter ; which is also nar- 
 rated in Scripture. In the last chapter of the 
 Gospel of St. John, we are told that several 
 of the disciples after the resurrection, on the 
 invitation of Peter, having gone to fish, in the 
 morning Christ appeared to them on the 
 beach, and after they had partaken of a meal 
 He had prepardd for them, He thus addressed 
 Himself to Simon Peter : " Simon, son of 
 John, lovest thou Me more than these ? He 
 saith to Him : Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that 
 I love Thee. He saith to him : Feed My 
 lambs. He saith to him again : Simon, son 
 of John, lovest thou Me. He saith to Him : 
 Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee. 
 He saith to him : Feed My lambs. He said 
 
200 The Pope. 
 
 to him the third time : Simon, son of John, 
 lovest thou Me ? Peter was grieved because 
 He had said to him the third time, Lovest 
 thou Me ? And he said to Him : Lord, thou 
 knowest all things : thou knowest that I love 
 Thee. He said to him : Feed My sheep," 
 (Jn. xxi. 1 5,) Now, besides the difficulty of 
 finding any sensible interpretation of this 
 thrice repeated injunction, except that of 
 governing His spiritual flock, the word in the 
 original Greek used here to signify feed, was 
 also employed to mean govern as a king, lead, 
 direct, instruct. And the substitution of the 
 word sheep instead of lambs, in the third in- 
 stance, shows that Christ intended to speak 
 of His whole flock, the old as well as the 
 young, the great in dignity as well as the 
 little ones, of all without exception. " You 
 are he," writes St. Bernard to Pope Eu- 
 genius, " to whom the keys were given, to 
 whom the sheep were entrusted. There are 
 indeed likewise other gate-keepers of heaven 
 and pastors of the flocks ; but you have in- 
 
The Pope. 201 
 
 herited both titles in a sense far different and 
 more sublime. They have each of them 
 their respective flocks, severally assigned to 
 them : all have been entrusted to you, one 
 flock to one man. Nor are you the shep- 
 herd of the sheep alone, but of the shepherds 
 also ; the one pastor of all. Do you ask me 
 how I prove this ? From the word of the 
 Lord. For to which I do not say of the 
 bishops, but of the apostles themselves, were 
 all the sheep committed so absolutely and 
 unreservedly ? If thou lovest Me, Peter, 
 feed My sheep ?' What sheep ? The peo- 
 ple of this or that district, city or kingdom ? 
 1 My sheep,' He says. Who does not mani- 
 festly see that He did not designate any, but 
 assigned them all to him ? None are ex- 
 cepted where no distinction is made. The 
 other disciples were perchance present when, 
 entrusting all to one, he recommended unity 
 to all, in one flock and one shepherd, accord- 
 ing to the passage : ' My dove is one, my 
 beautiful one, my perfect one.' ' We have 
 
202 The Fope. 
 
 therefore, besides the promise of Christ, and 
 the renewal of that promise, a clear narration 
 in St. John of the communication by Christ 
 to His Apostle St. Peter, of supreme spiritual 
 jurisdiction over all the members of His 
 Church. 
 
 What, it may be asked here — and the 
 question is an important one, which will help 
 to elucidate this whole matter — what was the 
 reason why Jesus Christ chose to appoint one 
 supreme head to His Church ? The reason 
 was that assigned by St. Bernard — -to pre- 
 serve its unity, " to keep the unity of the 
 Spirit in the bond of peace," (Eph. iv. 3.) 
 The bond which preserves the members of 
 any society, of no matter what kind, in peace- 
 ful union, is some central authority, without 
 which they would be only — to use an old 
 comparison — like a loose bundle of sticks ; 
 and to what else the multitudinous, disparate 
 Protestant sects can be better compared, 
 without uncharitableness, I really do not 
 
The Pope. 203 
 
 know ; they have nothing to bind them to- 
 gether. On the contrary, that the See of St. 
 Peter was the centre of Catholic unity, by 
 which that unity was always to be main- 
 tained, has been the constant teaching of the 
 Fathers. " Irenaeus rather vaguely," says 
 Hallam, i( and Cyprian more positively, admit, 
 or rather assert, the supremacy of the Church 
 of Rome, which the latter seems to have re- 
 garded as a kind of centre of Catholic unity." 
 St. Irenaeus' words we have already quoted ; 
 they are anything but vague. We shall con- 
 sider St. Cyprian's in a moment. These two 
 Fathers belong to the very first centuries of 
 the Church. Father Newman has very truly 
 remarked in his Theory of Development, 
 that the ancient heretics, however at variance 
 among themselves, combined, and it was the 
 only time they combined, in hostility to the 
 Catholic Church. " The Meletians of Africa 
 united with the Arians against St. Athana- 
 sius ; the semi-Arians of the Council of Sar- 
 dica correspond with the Donalists of Africa ; 
 
204 The Pope. 
 
 Nestorius received and protected the Pela- 
 gians ; Aspar, the Arian minister of Leo the 
 emperor, favored the Monophysites of Egypt ; 
 the Jacobites of Egypt sided with the Mos- 
 lem, who are charged with holding a Nes- 
 torian doctrine. It had been so from the 
 beginning. ' They huddle up a peace with 
 all everywhere/ says Tertullian ; 'for it mak- 
 eth no matter to them, although they hold 
 different doctrines, so long as they conspire 
 together in their siege against the one thing, 
 Truth/ ' Bellum haereticorum pax est ex- 
 clesia.' Against all these enemies the Fa- 
 thers objected the unity of the Church as 
 maintained in the See of Peter. " For this 
 reason, " says St. Jerome, " out of the twelve 
 (apostles) one is selected, that by the ap- 
 pointment of a head, the occasion of schism 
 may be taken away." This Father in his 
 perplexity to know which of the three rival 
 claimants at Antioch, he shall recognize as 
 bishop, writes to Pope Damasus : " I follow 
 here your colleagues, the confessors of Egypt, 
 
The Pope. 2 o5 
 
 and, amidst the merchant vessels, I lie hid in 
 a little boat. I know nothing of Vitalis — I 
 reject Meletius — I care not for Paulinus. 
 Whoever does not gather with you scatters ; 
 that is, whoever is not of Christ, is of Anti- 
 christ. I who follow none as my Chief but 
 Christ, am associated in communion with thy 
 Blessedness, that is, with the See of Peter ; 
 on that rock the Church is built, I know." 
 And in a second letter : " The Church here 
 being split into three parts, each hastens to 
 draw me to itself. The venerable authority 
 of the monks who dwell around, assails me. 
 In the meantime I cry out : Whoever is 
 united with the Chair of Peter is mine. Me- 
 letius, Vitalis, and Paulinus, affirm that they 
 adhere to you. If one only made the asser- 
 tion, I could believe ; but, in the present 
 case, either two of them deceive me or all of 
 them. Therefore I beseech you, Blessed 
 Father, by the cross of our Lord, by the 
 necessary ornament of our faith, by the pas- 
 sion of Christ — as you succeed the apostles 
 
206 The Pope. 
 
 in dignity, so may you rival them in merit — 
 so may you sit on the throne of judgment 
 with the twelve — so may another gird you 
 like Peter in your old age/' that is, may you 
 receive the crown of martyrdom — " so may 
 you gain the franchise of the heavenly city 
 with Paul ; declare to me by your letter with 
 whom I should hold communion in Syria. 
 Do not disregard a soul for which Christ 
 died." Evidently he believed in the Pope's 
 authority. " For the good of unity," says 
 St. Optatus, " blessed Peter, alone received 
 the keys." " He spaks to one," says St. 
 Pacian, " that from one he might shape out 
 unity," " In the single person of St. Peter," 
 says St. Augustin, " our Lord cast the mould 
 of His Church. . . in single Peter the unity ' 
 of all the pastors was figured." " From the 
 Roman Church, as from a fountain-head," 
 says St. Ambrose (another Father calls it 
 " the head and origin of the truth"), " the 
 rights of venerable communities flow unto all. 
 . . . ' Thou art Peter, &c.' Therefore — where 
 
The Pope. 207 
 
 Peter is, there is the Church — ubi Petrus, ibi 
 ecclesia ; ,? that is, that Church everywhere 
 which communicates with the See of Peter, 
 is the Catholic Church. " The Church," says 
 St. John Chrysostom, " is stronger than hea- 
 ven ; for heaven and earth shall pass away, 
 but my word shall not pass away. What 
 word ? ' Thou art Peter.' " 
 
 Now let us listen to St. Cyprian : " Cer- 
 tainly the other apostles also, were what 
 Peter was, endued with an equal fellowship 
 both of honor and power. But a commence- 
 ment is made from unity, that the Church 
 may be set before us as one ; ' My dove, my 
 spotless one is but one ; she is the only one 
 of her mother, elect of her that bore her/ 
 He who does not hold this unity of the 
 Church, does he think that he holds the 
 faith ? For thus the blessed Apostle Paul 
 manifests this sacrament of unity : ' There is 
 one body and one Spirit, even as ye are 
 called in one hope of your calling : one Lord, 
 one faith, one baptism, one God.' This unity 
 
208 The Pope. 
 
 we especially, bishops presiding in the 
 Church, should hold and maintain, in order 
 that we may prove the episcopate itself to be 
 one and undivided. The episcopate is one, 
 of which a part is held by each without divi- 
 sion of the whole. The Church too is one, 
 though she be spread abroad, and multiplies 
 with the issue of her progeny : even as the 
 sun has many rays, yet one light ; and the 
 tree many boughs, yet its strength is one, 
 seated in the deep-lodged root (elsewhere he 
 calls the See of Peter " the root and womb 
 of the Catholic Church ") ; and as when many 
 streams flow down from one source, though 
 a multiplicity of waters seem to be diffused 
 from its broad, overflowing abundance, unity 
 is preserved in the source itself. Part a ray 
 of the sun from its orb, and its unity forbids 
 this division of light ; break a branch from the 
 tree, once broken it can bud no more ; cut 
 the stream from its fountain, the remnant will 
 be dried up. Thus the Church, flooded with 
 the light of the Lord, puts forth her rays 
 

 The Pope. 209 
 
 through the whole world, yet with one light 
 which is spread upon all places, while its 
 unity of body is not infringed. She stretches 
 forth her branches over the universal Earth, 
 in the riches of plenty, and pours abroad her 
 bountiful and onward streams ; — yet there is 
 one Head, one source, one Mother, abounding 
 in the products of her fruitfulness." Where is 
 that Mother ? that source ? that head ? that 
 centre ? "To Peter the Lord said : * Thou art 
 the rock ;' to him again, after his resurrec- 
 tion : ' Feed my sheep.' . . . God is one, and 
 the Church is one, and one the chair founded 
 upon the rock by the Lord's voice . . the 
 chair of Peter, and that principal Church, 
 from which the unity of the priesthood took 
 its origin." 
 
 A theory has been propounded of late 
 which explains the necessary unity of the 
 Church by the simple co-existence of legiti- 
 mate successions of bishops, without any out- 
 ward intercommunion, and indeed without 
 unity of doctrine. " We make schism and 
 
2 1 o The Pope. 
 
 separation from Christ lie in opposing our 
 bishop, not the bishop of Rome," wrote the 
 divines who published the Oxford translation 
 of the Fathers. According to this- ingenious 
 system, a bishop can never divide the Church, 
 though he were a Macedonius or a Nestorius, 
 a Dr. Colenso or a Dr. Temple. " They 
 have not the same Lord," writes Dr. Pusey 
 in his Eirenicon (p. 57), " who do not believe 
 the sari^e truth as to Him. The heretics of 
 old . . . believed not the same Lord." And 
 do the heretics of to-day ? What is there 
 common, say, between the Church of England 
 and the Church of Rome ? between the 
 churches subject to Canterbury and the 
 churches subject to Westminster ? between 
 the Protestant Episcopal Church of America 
 and the Roman Catholic Church in the Uni- 
 ted States ? Can any one who has not an 
 object in view say that they are one ? Was 
 that the oneness which Christ asked for when 
 he prayed that his disciples should be one as 
 God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are 
 
The Pope. 2 1 1 
 
 one ? who said that " every kingdom divided 
 against itself should be made desolate, and 
 every house divided against itself shall fall ?" 
 They have neither unity of government nor 
 unity of belief. The sacrament of marriage 
 is another image employed by the Apostle 
 to represent the unity of the Church ; " they 
 shall be two in one body." The Church of 
 England was united to the Church of Rome : 
 she and her daughter, the Episcopal Church 
 of America, have been separated by divorce. 
 " Whom God has united, let no man sepa- 
 rate." Henry the Eighth cut the knot in 
 England, as Luther did in Germany. What 
 connection is there between a church which 
 permits every variety of doctrine within its 
 body, as the Church of England does, and a 
 church which will not tolerate the slightest 
 divergence from its authoritative teaching, 
 like the Roman Church ? We, Romanists, 
 insist on actual, visible, external communion 
 with, and submission to, Rome, as of necessity 
 to be in the Church ; the very highest An- 
 
212 The Pope. 
 
 glicans do not. We maintain, as of faith, 
 that the Church has uninterruptedly the 
 power of exercising her gift of infallibility ; 
 the highest Anglicans assume that, on ac- 
 count of its " unhappy divisions" the exercise 
 of that gift has been suspended in the Church. 
 With Anglicans the necessity of baptism is 
 an open question ; they have altered the form 
 of confirmation ; and it is impossible to say 
 what they do believe with regard to the Eu- 
 charist. We say, no baptised Christian's 
 mortal sins can be forgiven but by submitting 
 them to the power of the keys ; at most, the 
 Anglican Church leaves its members free to 
 do as they please in this matter. We believe 
 in the sacrament of Extreme Unction, as 
 taught by St. James ; what does the Church 
 of England, more than any sect, do for the 
 soul at the moment of its passage to eternity ? 
 Has the Church of England always believed 
 holy orders to be a sacrament ? Does it, 
 with its divorce courts, believe matrimony to 
 be a sacrament ? Does it believe, as a 
 
The Pope. 213 
 
 Church, in the existence of a purgatory ? n 
 the power of indulgences ? in the interces- 
 sion of Saints ? in the invocation of Mary, and 
 her Immaculate Conception ? No, the Jew, 
 the deist, and the Mahometan, who all be- 
 lieve in one God, are not more certainly 
 distinct from each other, than are the Greek, 
 the Anglican, and the Roman communions, 
 those so-called " branches" of the Christian 
 Church. This is too serious a matter for 
 mere fancy or sentiment. If the successor 
 of St. Peter is the supreme head of Christ's 
 Church, as the gentlemen who propose this 
 theory admit, the English, the Episcopal 
 Church, and every Protestant sect, is, to say 
 the least, in a state of open schism. And 
 how severe the early Fathers are in their 
 judgments on mere schismatics, — not here- 
 tics—I w iH n ot repeat, lest their expressions 
 should appear to be too harsh. But I will 
 conclude this lecture with the words of St. 
 Augustin to the Donatists of Africa, who ad- 
 mitted no error of doctrine, and whose only 
 
214 The Pope. 
 
 fault was that, instead of saying, like Augus- 
 tin, " Rome has spoken, the case is ended, 
 Roma locuta est, causa est Anita," they would 
 not submit to the decision of a pope of Rome 
 in the appointment of a bishop : — " You are 
 with us in baptism, in the creed, in the other 
 sacraments of the Lord ; but in the spirit of 
 unity, in the bond of peace, — in fine, in the 
 Catholic Church itself, you are not with us 
 . . . Those whom the Donatists baptise, they 
 heal of the wound of idolatry or infidelity, 
 but inflict a more grievous stroke in the 
 wound of schism, . . the sacrilege of schism 
 which surpasses all wickedness ; . . for idola- 
 ters among God's people the sword des- 
 troyed, but schismatics the gaping earth 
 devoured" (alluding to the punishment of 
 Core, Dathan and Abiron) . . . j' Wherefore the 
 entire world judges with security that they 
 are not good who separate themselves from 
 the entire world, in whatevet part of the en- 
 tire world . . And in whatever part of the 
 world this has been done, or is done, or shall 
 
The Pope. 2 \ 5 
 
 be, . . none can have so acted, unless . . 
 furious . . or insane . . or corrupted . . or 
 perverted." (And yet these Donatists were 
 not insignificant in numbers, since they could 
 gather a council of four hundred bishops, — 
 more than ever England, or even Germany, 
 witnessed together.) ....-" Outside the Cath- 
 olic Church," says this Father, " a man may 
 have everything — except salvation. He may 
 have honor, he may have sacraments, he may 
 sing Alleluia, he may answer Amen, he may 
 hold the gospels, he may both have the faith, 
 and preach it in the name of the Father and 
 of the Son and of the Holy Ghost ; but no- 
 where except in the Catholic Church will he 
 be able to find salvation. For all these 
 things pass away, my brethren. . . . " You 
 know," he continues to the Donatists, who 
 might be called the Nationalists of that time, 
 u You know what the Catholic Church is, and 
 what that is cut off from the vine. If there 
 be any among you cautious let them come ; 
 let them find life in the root. Come, brethren, 
 
2 1 6 The Pope. 
 
 if you wish to be engrafted in the vine : a 
 grief it is when we see you lying thus cut off. 
 But you don't know how to shake off from 
 your schismatical bishops. Number the 
 bishops even from the very seat of Peter ; 
 and see every succession in that line of 
 Fathers : that is the rock against which the 
 proud gates of hell cannot prevail." In the 
 heart-kind charity which animates these 
 words, all Catholic souls will sympathize; 
 and, in a like spirit, they will address them 
 to those who, at the present day, occupy the 
 same position as the Donatists : — Come, 
 brethren, and be grafted in the vine ; come, 
 and take root in that apostolic See " against 
 which the proud gates of hell cannot prevail." 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 The Pope. 
 
 We have now sufficiently considered the 
 signs or marks, by which, according to the 
 appointment of its founder, we are to distin- 
 guish the true Church of Jesus Christ from all 
 those which are of spurious origin ; and we 
 have examined the grounds on which the 
 Roman Catholic Church claims to possess 
 in their integrity all these distinguishing signs 
 and marks. We have also endeavored, so far 
 as the limits of time would permit, to discuss 
 the question, whether, to form truly a part 
 of the Christian Church, it is necessary to be 
 in active communication with the bishop of 
 Rome, the successor in his episcopal see of 
 St. Peter. I have said in one of my lectures 
 that we might investigate the whole question 
 of the Christian religion historically, that is, 
 
2 1 8 The Pope. 
 
 by studying the records of the past genera- 
 tions from the commencement of Christianity 
 down to our own time, and seeing whether 
 through all ages there has existed in un- 
 broken duration, such a Church as the Roman 
 Catholics maintain that the Christian Church 
 from the beginning was, always has been, is, 
 and must perpetually continue to be I pro- 
 pose this evening thus to examine one point, 
 namely, the necessity of active communion 
 with the See of Rome, whether actual com- 
 munion with the successor of St. Peter has 
 always been considered a necessary condition 
 for being a living member of the Christian 
 Church : and, in order to do so briefly, I shall 
 confine myself to, first, the testimony of the 
 Greek Church, as represented in her General 
 Councils, down to the Photian Schism, when, 
 of course, having separated from the West, 
 she ceased to acknowledge the necessity of 
 that intercommunication ; and, secondly, the 
 witness of another church, one of the church- 
 es of the West, from that period up to the 
 
The Pope. 2 1 9 
 
 moment when she too cut herself off from 
 the centre of Catholic unity, the beginning of 
 the Protestant Reformation. 
 
 In the first three centuries, the age of per- 
 secution, it was impossible to call together 
 General Councils of the Church. The docu- 
 ments for the ecclesiastical history of that 
 epoch which have come down to us are also 
 very scanty. Nevertheless those which we 
 do possess, as Father Newman says, are suf- 
 ficient to furnish us with " a cumulative argu- 
 ment in favor of the active and doctrinal 
 authority of Rome." Thus Father Newman 
 resumes that argument, in the introduction to 
 his essay on Development: "The Anti-Ni- 
 cene testimonies which may be cited in 
 behalf of the authority of the Holy See . . 
 faint they may be one by one, but at least 
 they are various, and are drawn from many 
 times and countries, and thereby serve to 
 illustrate each other, and form a body of 
 proof. Thus St. Clement, in the name of the 
 Church of Rome, writes a letter to the Corin- 
 
2 20 The Pope, 
 
 thians, when they were without a bishop ; 
 St. Ignatius of Antioch addresses the Roman 
 Church, and it only out of the churches 
 to which he writes, as ' the Church which has 
 the first seat in the place of the country of 
 the Romans ;' St. Poly carp of Smyrna be- 
 takes himself to the bishop of Rome on the 
 question of Easter ; the heretic Marcion, ex- 
 communicated in Pontus, betakes himself to 
 Rome ; Soter, bishop of Rome, sends alms, 
 according to the custom of his church, to the 
 churches throughout the empire, and, in the 
 words of Eusebius, 'affectionately exhorted 
 those who came to Rome, as a father his 
 children ;' the Montanists from Phrygia came 
 to Rome to gain the countenance of its 
 bishop ; Praxeas, from Africa, attempts the 
 like, and for a while is successful ; St. Victor, 
 bishop of Rome, threatens to excommunicate 
 the Asian churches. St. Irenaeus speaks of 
 Rome as * the greatest Church, the most an- 
 cient, the most conspicuous, and founded and 
 established by Peter and Paul,' appeals to its 
 
The Pope. 2 2 1 
 
 tradition, not in contrast indeed, but in pre- 
 ference to that of other churches, and de- 
 clares that, ' in this Church, every church, that 
 is, the faithful from every side, must meet,' or 
 'agree together, propter po:iorem principali- 
 tatem (on account of its higher chiefdom).' 
 \ O Church, happy is its position,' says Ter- 
 tullian, ' into which the Apostles poured out, 
 together with their blood, their whole doc- 
 trine.' The presbyters of St. Dionysius, 
 bishop of Alexandria, complain of his doc- 
 trine to St. Dionysius of Rome ; the latter 
 expostulated with him, and he explains. The 
 Emperor Aurelian leaves to the bishops of 
 Italy and Rome, the decision whether or not 
 Paul of Samosata shall be dispossessed of the 
 see-house at Antioch ; St. Cyprian speaks of 
 Rome as ' the see of Peter and the principal 
 Church, whence the unity of the priesthood 
 took its rise . . . whose faith has been com- 
 mended by the apostles, to whom faithlessness 
 can have no access ;' St. Stephen (pope) 
 refuses to receive St. Cyprian's deputation, 
 
222 The Pope. 
 
 and separates himself from various churches 
 of the East ; Fortunatus and Felix, deposed 
 by St. Cyprian, have recourse to Rome ; 
 Basilides, deposed in Spain, betakes himself 
 •to Rome, and gains the ear of St. Stephen." 
 The first general council after peace was 
 restored to the Church, was that of Nice, or 
 Nicaea. All the first eight councils were 
 held in the East, and were composed almost 
 entirely of Eastern bishops. "They were all 
 held in the East," says the Protestant Guizot, 
 " by bishops oi the East, under the influence 
 of the emperors of the East." This gives to 
 the testimony of these councils in favor of the 
 supremacy of the Roman See, much greater 
 weight : the East was always jealous of the 
 West, and little inclined to grant it any pre- 
 rogative, except such as had been always 
 indubitably acknowledged from the beginning 
 of the Church. Another observation to be 
 made here is, that the witness of these earliest 
 councils proves not only what was the con- 
 temporaneous belief of the Church, but also 
 
The Pope. 223 
 
 what had been believed in the preceding 
 ages. This is evident, if history does not tell 
 us of the existence of a previous contradic- 
 tory belief. For it is impossible that a com- 
 plete and sweeping revolution should have 
 taken place in the faith of Christendom, 
 without leaving its trace in history, with- 
 out even exciting at the time violent re- 
 sistance and contests, all of which would 
 have been recorded. Besides, the Fathers of 
 these councils always appeal to the tradition 
 of the Church as the foundation and ground- 
 work of the faith which they profess. The 
 Council of Nicaea, convoked (as we learn 
 from the 1 8th act of the 6th General Council, 
 the 3d of Constantinople) by Constantine 
 and the Pope, St. Sylvester, to settle the 
 question of Arianism, met in the year 325. 
 The Pope was represented by his prelate 
 Osius, bishop of Cordova, and there were 
 present many confessors of the faith during 
 the days of persecution. The formula of 
 faith adopted at this council, since known as 
 
224 The Pope. 
 
 the Nicene Creed, was written at the dictation 
 of Osius, the papal legate ; after which it 
 was read alone by him and signed by the 
 bishops present. Here we see how the 
 Fathers of this oecumenical council imitated 
 the conduct of the apostles in the first council 
 of Jerusalem. There, after there had been 
 much disputing, St. Peter rose, pronounced 
 his opinion, and an end was put to the dis- 
 cussion ; then St. James, and after him the 
 others, having approved of what St. Peter • 
 had said, the council was closed. The Coun- 
 cil of Nice distinctly declares in one of its 
 canons the primacy of the Roman See, to- 
 gether with the superior jurisdiction of the 
 patriarchates of Antioch and Alexandria. I 
 give it as it stands in the apostolic canons. 
 " The Primacy has always resided in the 
 Church of Rome. Let the ancient custom 
 then be vigorously maintained in Egypt, 
 Libya, and Pentapolis, so that all pay the 
 homage of submission to the bishop of Alex- 
 andria, for so the Roman Pontiff orders. Let 
 
The Pope. 22S 
 
 tae same be observed with respect to the 
 bishop of Antioch ; and so in all other prov- 
 inces, let the various churches keep their 
 own privileges." The strength of this allu- 
 sion to the bishop of Antioch and Alexandria 
 will be understood when we consider why it 
 was that they were treated as possessing 
 greater dignity than the other churches after 
 Rome. It was because St. Peter himself had 
 first resided at Antioch before going to 
 Rome, and from Rome he sent his disciple 
 St. Mark the evangelist to found the See of 
 Alexandria. " Though there were several 
 apostles," says St. Gregory the Great, " yet 
 only one of them, whose place is in three 
 different churches, could give to these a par- 
 amount influence over all other churches. 
 St. Peter gave the first rank to the see in 
 which he designed to fix his authority and to 
 close his immortal career. It is he who illus- 
 trated the see to which he sent his disciple, 
 the evangelist ; it is he again who established 
 the see of Antioch, in which he sat for seven 
 
226 The Pope. 
 
 years ; so that they form but one and the 
 same see." " The three patriarchs," says St. 
 Leo, ''occupy one and the same apostolic 
 chair, because all three have succeeded to the 
 see of Peter and to his Church, founded by 
 Jesus Christ in unity, and to which he gave 
 one single head to preside over three princi- 
 cipal sees in the three patriarchal cities, that 
 the indissoluble union of the three sees might 
 bind the other churches more closely to the 
 divinely constituted head." Out of 318 
 bishops present at the council of Nicaea, only 
 22 were from Europe, the rest belonged to 
 Asia and Africa ; how then was it to be made 
 oecumenical ? By the approval of its acts by 
 the bishop of Rome : " it was determined 
 that all these things should be sent to Sylves- 
 ter, bishop of the city of Rome." In the 
 year 347 a council was held at Sardica, which 
 has generally been considered as a sort of 
 continuation of that of Nice. It was pre- 
 sided over by the papal legate, and St. 
 Athanasius was present. This council taking 
 
The Pope. 227 
 
 into consideration the abuses in the promo- 
 tion of bishops, judged that the proper 
 remedy for such an evil was to appeal to the 
 superior jurisdiction of Rome. " This will 
 seem the best," it writes to the Pope Julius, 
 " and by far the most fitting, if the Lord's 
 bishops make reference from all the provinces 
 to the head, that is, the see of the apostle 
 Peter." The great figure of this epoch was 
 St. Athanasius. When Athanasius was ex- 
 pelled from Alexandria by an intruded Asian 
 bishop, he repaired to Rome, where he was 
 received and protected by the Pope, who 
 wrote thus to the East :— " Know you not 
 that the canonical rule was to recur first to 
 our authority, and that the decision must 
 proceed from it? Such is the tradition that 
 we have received from the blessed apostle 
 Peter, and I believe it to be so universally 
 acknowledged that I should not recall it here 
 if these deplorable circumstances did not 
 constrain me to proclaim it." 
 
 The second General Council, the first of 
 
228 .-. The Pope. 
 
 Constantinople, was held in the year 381, 
 under Pope St. Damasus. This was the 
 Pope to whom St. Jerome wrote such touch- 
 ing appeals to tell him with whom to hold 
 communion at Antioch ; and to whom St. 
 Basil wrote equally earnest letters to settle 
 the disputes among the Asiatic churches. A 
 letter from him read to the Fathers of this 
 council, " that they might be able to learn 
 what care he bore for all the churches/' 
 showed to what an extent his ecclesiastical 
 jurisdiction was acknowledged. " That your 
 charity, most honored children, " he says, 
 " should have rendered due reverence to the 
 Apostolic seat, is a matter of the greatest 
 merit to yourselves. Why is it then that 
 you ask of me again the abdication of Timo- 
 thy ? This bishop was deprived of his see 
 here (in Rome) by the judgment of the 
 Apostolic seat, in the presence of -Peter 
 (bishop) of Alexandria, as well as Apollinaris, 
 his master, who will likewise on the day of 
 judgment suffer a deserved chastisement and 
 
The Pope. 229 
 
 judgment." This Council, being held at Con- 
 stantinople, passed a decree that the bishop 
 of Constantinople should rank next to that 
 of Rome, before those of Antioch and Alex- 
 andria. The popes would never approve of 
 this decision, and it never became law. With 
 this exception, the acts of the Council having 
 been sent to the Pope," " blessed Damasus," 
 says Phoetius, " by his authority, confirmed 
 the second Council." 
 
 The third General Council assembled at 
 Ephesus in the year 431, to decide on the 
 doctrine of Nestorius. Now, mark you, 
 Nestorius was archbishop of Constantinople. 
 In his letter to the Council, the Pope St. Cel- 
 ( estine says that his legate will preside, " and 
 shall carry into effect what we have before 
 determined," namely, the deposition of Nes- 
 torius. The Council deposes Nestorius in 
 the following terms : u Nestorius, having 
 refused to answer our summons and to re- 
 ceive the bishop sent to him, we have been 
 obliged to enter upon an examination of his 
 
230 The Pope. 
 
 impieties. He is convicted on the evidence 
 of his letters, his writings and his discourses, 
 of holding and spreading scandalous and 
 heretical opinions. Bound by the holy canons, 
 and by the letter of our holy Father Celestine, 
 Bishop of Rome, we are reduced, not without 
 tears of heartfelt sorrow, to the cruel neces- 
 sity of pronouncing this sentence against 
 him : Our Lord Jesus Christ, whom he has 
 blasphemed, decides through this most holy 
 Council, that he is deprived of his episcopal 
 dignity, and cut off from every ecclesiastical 
 body." " In this sentence, says Bossuet, 
 " the Fathers recognize in the Pope's letter, 
 the force of a judicial sentence, to which they 
 feel bound to subscribe." Then the legate 
 says: "We return thanks to the holy and 
 venerable Council, that the letters of our holy 
 Pope having been read to you, you have 
 joined yourselves as holy members to a holy 
 Head. For your Holiness is not ignorant 
 that the blessed Apostle Peter is head of the 
 whole faith, and of the apostles themselves/' 
 
The Pope. 231 
 
 And afterwards he continues : " It is doubt- 
 ful to no one, but rather known to all ages, 
 that holy and most blessed Peter, prince and 
 head of the apostles, pillar of the faith, and 
 foundation of the Catholic Church, received 
 from our Lord Jesus Christ, Savior and Re- 
 deemer of the human race, the keys of the 
 kingdom of heaven, and that the power of 
 loosing and binding sins * was given to him ; 
 who to this very time and forever lives, and 
 exercises judgment on his successors. And 
 so our most blessed Pope Celestine the bish- 
 op, his successor in due order, and holding 
 his place, has sent us to this holy Council to 
 represent him." Then the other legates, 
 among whom was St. Cyril, archbishop of 
 Alexandria,, having declared that they had 
 11 fulfilled what was ordered them," the Council 
 found that they had " said what was fitting ;" 
 and so the Council terminated. 
 
 The fourth General Council met at Chalce- 
 don, in the year 45 1, and w r as attended by 
 over 600 .bishops, the largest number ever 
 
232 The Pope. 
 
 assembled together until the present Council 
 of the Vatican. They were all Easterns, with 
 the exception of two Roman legates and two 
 Africans. At the opening of the first session 
 the legates of the Pope rose and said : " We 
 have in our hands the commands of the most 
 blessed and apostolic man, Pope of the city 
 of Rome, which is the head of all churches, 
 in which his Apostleship has thought fit to 
 order that Dioscorus should not sit in the 
 Council, but be introduced to make his de- 
 fence. He must give an account of the 
 judgment he passed ; inasmuch as not having 
 the right to judge, he presumed and dared 
 to hold a council without the authority of the 
 Apostolic See, a thing which never was law- 
 ful, never has been done." And the bishop 
 Dioscorus, who was patriarch of Alexandria, 
 was not allowed to sit in the Council. The 
 great St. Leo was the then reigning Pope. 
 No pontiff has insisted more fully on the right 
 of the Roman See to supreme jurisdiction 
 over the whole Church than this great saint. 
 
The Pope. 233 
 
 Allow me to quote a little at length the words 
 of so great a Pontiff, as he exposes beauti- 
 fully the Catholic doctrine on this point. 
 Thus he writes to the bishop of Thessalonica, 
 when constituting hihi patriarch over all the 
 metropolitan sees of Greece and part of 
 Thrace : " As my predecessors to your pre- 
 decessors, so have I, following the example 
 of those gone before, committed to your 
 affection my charge of government, that you, 
 imitating our gentleness, might relieve the 
 care, which we, in virtue of our headship, by 
 divine institution, owe to all churches, and 
 might in some degree discharge our personal 
 visitation to provinces far distant from us. 
 For we have entrusted your affection to rep- 
 resent us on this condition, that you are 
 called to a part of our solicitude, but not to 
 the fullness of our power. But if in a matter 
 which you believe proper to be considered 
 and decided on with your brethren, their sen- 
 tence differs from yours, let everything be 
 referred to us on the authority of the Acts, 
 
2 34 The Pope. 
 
 that all doubtfulness may be removed, and we 
 may decree what pleaseth God. For the 
 compactness of our unity cannot remain firm 
 unless the bond of charity weld us into an 
 inseparable whole; because, 'as we have 
 many members in one body, and all the mem- 
 bers have not the same office, so we, being 
 many, are one body in Christ, and every one 
 member one of another.' For it is the con- 
 nection of the whole body which makes one 
 soundness, and one beauty ; and this connec- 
 tion, as it requires unanimity in the whole 
 body, so especially demands concord among 
 bishops. For, though these have a like dig- 
 nity, yet they have not an equal jurisdiction : 
 since even among the blessed Apostles, as 
 there was a likeness of honor, so was there a 
 certain distinction of power ; and, the election 
 of all being equal, pre-eminence over the 
 rest was given to one. From which type the 
 distinction also between bishops has arisen, 
 and it was provided by a great ordering that 
 all should not claim to themselves all things, 
 
The Pope. 235 
 
 but that in every province there should be 
 one whose sentence should be considered the 
 first among his brethren ; and others again, 
 seated in the greater cities, should undertake 
 a larger care, through) whom the direction of 
 the Universal Church should converge to the 
 one See of Peter, and nothing anywhere dis- 
 agree from its head." And thus he speaks 
 to the bishops gathered around him at Rome, 
 on the anniversary of his pontificate : " Al- 
 though, beloved, our partaking in that gift 
 (of unity) be a great subject for common joy, 
 yet it were . . more profitable to raise the 
 minds eye to the contemplation of the most 
 blessed Apostle Peter's glory, . . who was* 
 watered with streams so copious from the 
 very fountain of all graces, that while nothing 
 has passed to others without his participation, 
 yet he received many privileges of his own. 
 . . Christ had given up Himself wholly to 
 restore the race of man. Nothing was un- 
 ordered to His wisdom; nothing difficult to 
 His power . . Yet out of the whole world 
 
236 The Pope. 
 
 Peter is chosen to preside over the calling of 
 all the Gentiles, and over all the Apostles 
 and collected Fathers of the Church ; so 
 that, though there may be among the people 
 of God many priests and many shepherds, 
 yet Peter rules all by immediate commission, 
 whom Christ also rules by sovereign power. 
 Beloved, it is a great and wonderful partici- 
 pation of His own power which the Divine 
 condescendence gave to this man ; and if He 
 willed that other rulers should enjoy aught 
 together with him, yet never did He give, 
 save through him, what He denied not to 
 others. The Lord asks all the Apostles what 
 men think of Him . . But when what the 
 disciples think is required, he who is first in 
 apostolic dignity is first also in confessing the 
 Lord. And when he had said, 'Thou art 
 Christ the Son of the living God,' Jesus 
 answered him, ' Blessed art thou Simon Bar- 
 Jona, . . . And I,' saith He, ' say unto thee/ 
 — that is, as my Father hath manifested to 
 thee My Godhead, as I too make known unto 
 
The Pope. 237 
 
 thee thine own pre-eminence, — ' For thou art 
 Peter,' that is whilst I am the immutable Rock; 
 I the Corner Stone who make both one ; 
 I the Foundation beside which no one can 
 lay another ; yet thou also art a Rock, because 
 by My virtue thou art firmly planted, so that 
 whatever is peculiar to Me by power, is to 
 thee by participation common with Me, — 
 ' and upon this Rock I will build My Church, 
 and the gates of hell shall not prevail against 
 it.' . . . This confession the gates of hell 
 shall not restrain, nor the chains of death 
 fetter ; for that voice is the voice of life. And 
 as it raises those who confess it unto heavenly 
 places, so it plunges those who deny it into 
 hell. Wherefore it is said to the most blessed 
 Peter, < I will give to thee the keys of the 
 kingdom of heaven.' . . The privilege of this 
 power did indeed pass on to the other apos- 
 tles, and the order of this decree spread out 
 to all the rulers of the Church, but not with- 
 . out purpose, what is intended for all is put 
 into the hands of one. For therefore is this 
 
238 The Pope. 
 
 entrusted to Peter singularly, because all the 
 rulers of the Church are invested with the 
 figure of Peter. The privilege therefore of 
 Peter remaineth . . nothing is bound, nothing 
 loosed, save what blessed Peter either bind- 
 eth or looseth . . Again the Lord saith, 
 ' Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to 
 have you ; but I have prayed for thee, that 
 thy faith fail not, and when thou art con- 
 verted confirm thy brethren/ The danger 
 from the temptation of fear was common to 
 all the apostles, . . and yet the Lord takes 
 care of Peter in particular, and asks specially 
 for the faith of Peter, as if the state of the 
 rest would be more certain, if the mind of 
 their chief were not overcome. So then in 
 Peter the strength of all is fortified, and the 
 help of divine grace is so ordered, that the 
 stability which through Christ is given to 
 Peter, through Peter is conveyed to the 
 apostles. Reasonably and justly then do w r e 
 rejoice . . rendering thanks to the Eternal 
 King, our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 
The Pope. 239 
 
 for having given so great a power to him 
 whom He made chief of the whole Church 
 . . to whom, after His resurrection, in answer 
 to the triple profession of eternal love, (He) 
 thrice said, with mystical intent, ' Feed My 
 Sheep/ And thus, beyond a doubt, the pious 
 shepherd does even now, and fulfils the charge 
 of his Lord, confirming us . . . To him there- 
 fore let us ascribe this anniversary day of us 
 his servant, by whose advocacy we have been 
 thought worthy to share his seat itself, the 
 grace of our Lord Jesus Christ helping us in 
 all things." Pius IX would not, in Rome, to- 
 day, speak otherwise to the Catholic world 
 than did, 14 centuries ago, Pope St. Leo to 
 the bishops of the Church, gathered around 
 him in Rome. 
 
 To return to the Council of Chalcedon : 
 Dioscorus is deposed by the Papal legate, 
 thus : " Paschasinus, — and Lucentius, — and 
 Boniface, — pronounced. Leo, most holy and 
 blessed Archbishop of great and elder Rome, 
 by us, and by this holy Council, together with 
 
240 The Pope. 
 
 the most blessed Apostlq Peter, who is the 
 Rock and ground of the Catholic Church, 
 and the foundation of the right faith, hath 
 stripped him of the rank of bishop, and hath 
 severed him from all sacerdotal ministry.'' 
 And the Fathers exclaim : " Dioscorus has 
 been juridically deposed. It is God Himself 
 who has condemned Dioscorus. ,, And in 
 their letter to St. Leo, asking his approval of 
 their decisions, they say, of this same Dios- 
 corus, " He turned his insane rage against 
 him to whom our Divine Savior entrusted 
 the care of His vineyard, — that is, against 
 Your Apostolic Holiness, the very person 
 entrusted by the Savior with the guardianship 
 of the vine/' This was the most boisterous 
 of the early Councils. The Fathers almost 
 unanimously were opposed to an explicit 
 condemnation of the doctrine of Eutyches : 
 like many of the Fathers of the Vatican 
 Council with regard to the definition of Papal 
 Infallibility, they judged it inopportune. 
 When the Papal legates however insisted, 
 
The Pope. 241 
 
 they yielded, and Eutyches was condemned. 
 It was the consideration of this fact which 
 determined the conversion to the Catholic 
 Church of John Henry Newman. St. Leo's 
 letter explaining the Catholic faith was read 
 in the Council ; and, at the close of its lecture, 
 the Fathers, with one voice, cried out : "This 
 is the faith of the Fathers ! this is the faith 
 of the Apostles ! this is what we all believe ! 
 anathema to him who believes not thus ! Peter 
 has spoken by the mouth of Leo !" 
 
 These were the first four great Councils of 
 the Church, w r hich St. Gregory declared 
 should be held in the same veneration as the 
 four gospels, and which, I believe, have 
 always been accepted by Protestants as truly 
 representing the belief of early Christendom, 
 I am obliged to pass over the remaining 
 Councils. The last General Council held in 
 the East was at Constantinople, in 869, im- 
 mediately before its final separation from the 
 West. In it all the bishops signed the fol- 
 lowing profession, in which they condemned 
 
in advance and eternally the schism tl 
 
 to consilium 
 
 pass* d by, 
 who sa rhou art 1' nd upon this 
 
 k I w ill build my Church, 1 th< 
 
 I l>y th Ct which has followed : 
 
 tolic S 
 religion h pt immaculate, and 
 
 holy doctrif* there. Whei 
 
 by no means desirii I from 
 
 its faith and doctrine, and following in all 
 things t!v i of the Fathers, and 
 
 chiefly of the holy Prelates of the Ap 
 
 anathematize all heresi* , . . con- 
 ning, | 
 of S ides, that i i have not 
 
 red to use their tongue against their Spir- 
 itual Father. Since following in all thin 
 the A; See, and observing in all thin 
 
 its Constitutions, we hope that we may be 
 worthy to be in one communion, which the 
 Apostolic Sec makes known, in which is the 
 complete and true solidity of the Christian 
 
TJu Pope. 243 
 
 igion. And this my pn n I have 
 
 written with my own hand and delivered to 
 thee, must holy Hadrian, Supreme Pontiff 
 
 1 Universal P In [439, a council 
 
 was called al . for the reunion of the 
 
 Greek Church, which was attended by bishops 
 both of the I n and Western church 
 
 In it tl iwing was passed, which 
 
 was ribed by the Eastern bishops, and 
 
 rec< in all the churches of Asia, Africa, 
 
 Italy, i ind and I iermany : M We 
 
 define that the Apostoli . that is, the 
 
 Roman Pontiff, has the right of Primacy over 
 all the churches of the world; that the Ro- 
 man Pontiff >r of St Peter ; 
 that he is the very Vicar of Christ, the head 
 of the whole Church, the Father and teacher 
 of all the faithful : that, in the person of St. 
 Peter, he was entrusted by our Lord with full 
 
 wer to feed, direct, and govern the whole 
 llock of Christ. Such is manifestly the doc- 
 trine taught by the Acts of the General 
 Council, as well as by the sacred canons." 
 
:\.\ Tht /' 
 
 The Greeks wer i J, faith! 
 
 en '<>re 
 
 the M i lent, 
 
 x let iefly, .it 
 
 historj nother I I the 
 
 West, that ire n e what 
 
 on this point, t- n down to the 
 
 moment when it broke <>t't I 
 in ruler, 
 
 [n the south i >i land, near tl 
 
 lei, may 1" the Mon- 
 
 bbot si 
 hi- in the days of Henry \ III. for his 
 
 fidelity to the Catholic Church and the 
 of the K' >m in I'- >ntiff, his spiritu 
 
 rth« I [ere traditi eph of 
 
 Arim tthe i v. h \ ' '■ 1 the 1" f < >nr I ,<>nl 
 
 in his own sepulchre in the virgin r<> 
 
 mpanied by some faithful disci] ent 
 
 by the A; - Philip from the of 
 
 Gaul, first planted tlv ; in the British 
 
 Isles and erected a place of worship to the 
 
P&pe. 245 
 
 rid only ( I L Thrice was England con- 
 ted, it" this tradition be true, to the Chris- 
 tian faith : in x, in the 
 days < »f P< >]><• Eleutherius, and b) St. i Gregory 
 
 A i ( Hildas and the Venerable Bede inform 
 
 itish King 1 . »nt ambassadors 
 
 to Ro k for bishops to instruct his 
 
 Christian religion. This is 1 
 
 markable : « tnd t« 1 R< ime ? At 
 
 that time flourisl Alban Butler remarks, 
 
 US in the Church of ( ',aul. 
 
 Why was n ius content with sending 
 
 instru city of I ,yons, where 
 
 ned with episcopal authority, 
 
 who was th of Polycarp, who was 
 
 himself the disciple of the evangelist St. 
 
 \n ? The reason could only be, beca 
 
 n in those days of Pagan persecution, in 
 
 entury, the remote Britons under- 
 
 od that the centre of Christian unity and 
 
 power was in the city of imperial Rome. 
 
 When the Donatist schism in Africa and 
 
A- 
 
 ianism in the East, threatened to rend I 
 f the CI 
 were held nn th< \ and .it 
 
 it both th< British l>i- h< 
 
 leir communion 
 with tl I in faith. Bui when 
 
 th'- errors of Pelagius, hii a Briton, be 
 
 tnd, it I lestine 
 
 who sent at the same time St Patrick into 
 
 I land and St. ( icrmanus ol AuxeiTC to 
 
 Bi itain, and. . made the 
 
 barbarian isle Christian, while he endea* 
 
 e the Roman i l 
 
 This P< lagius, like .ill the ian lis 
 
 ol that time me, in tlv of 
 
 cloaking <>\ er hi by the 
 
 appearance of favor from the Holy S 
 1 here In- ion of 
 
 his doctrine, which St. Augustin has pn 
 
 served to us. and which winds uj •• \\\ : 
 
 desire that it may be amended 1 \ you who 
 hold both the faith and th< r ; 
 
 if. how ir confession is approved 
 
Ill 24 7 
 
 Igment of your Apostolate, el It 
 and the Pelagian 
 wa disappear, like all the other 
 
 h< 1 
 
 rything to the Popes. 
 Whei 
 
 igland had been subju- 
 tain beautiful 
 
 Roman market 
 
 he inquired win and 
 
 when I I that the) \n- 
 
 laimed, M not . but Angels 
 
 impression produced 
 
 that day : r in his heart, and 
 
 I \ >pe, he was n< »t c< intent 
 
 till he had sent I >nk Augustin with his 
 
 inions to convert those noble barbarians 
 
 of the North to the true faith, with only the 
 
 not to be able to accompany them 
 
 himself. I monks embarked tothenum- 
 
 the island, and landed on the 
 
 LSt of Kent, then ruled by king Ethelbert, 
 
 whom they converted with his people to 
 
Christian: 1 ustin \\a : a 
 
 bishop by the legate of the H0I3 Se< in 
 > I the numb ts in 
 
 ent him, with \\ ritt< 
 as ho* sh 
 
 mi and the ('allium, the sign oi av 
 
 chi al authoi . In his instru* dona 
 
 he dir«(ts him to divide the countr) into 
 dio he was to appoint 
 
 I by himself, I [ere let us 
 1 - Vugustii He 
 h unless he had I m. 
 
 ording I low 
 
 can the) preach unless tl I le 
 
 was sent b) 1 
 
 And who gave him jurisdiction over the in 
 habitants of the island ? Was it the pagan 
 kii Kent ? I Md he nize any s] 
 
 itual supn in that monarch ? It 
 
 rin Gregory win him all jurisdiction. 
 
 Thus the Pope writes to him: '• Let your 
 Fraternity have all the bishops of Britain 
 subject to you by the authority of our Lord 
 
The Pope 249 
 
 A :" and again : - We give you no author- 
 ity bishops of Gaul ; but we commit 
 iternity the care oi all British 
 bisho] Therefore the faith which Augus- 
 lin. th archbishop of Canterbury planted 
 in England, was that of Gregory. What was 
 
 to the prerogatives of 
 
 . we may learn from his writings. 
 
 Thus he writes to the same prolate of Gaul 
 
 wh 1 Augustin bishop: "Since 
 
 <»no knows whence the holy faith came 
 
 n your Brotherhood asks anew 
 
 nt custom of the apostolic see, 
 
 wh i it but as a L^ood child, recur to the 
 
 K>m <>f its mother? We -rant therefore 
 
 to your I hood to represent ourselves 
 
 in that Church . . according to the ancient 
 
 torn, which has God for its author." "To 
 
 all who knowtlv el," he writes again, "it 
 
 of the whole Church 
 was entrusted by the will of the Lord to the 
 ho' :1<- Peter, chief of all the apostles. 
 
 For to him is said, 4 Lovest thou me?' to 
 
! 
 
 him is said ( nfirm thy brethi Ml 
 
 him I, ' Thou art P&er.' . , Who 
 
 norant that the holy Church is establish* d on 
 the stability of this chief of the apostles, who 
 in his name exp re s sed the firmness o( his 
 mind, being called I om tin R< * k ? . . 
 
 I >, he hath r ived the 1 the kingdom 
 
 i. the i >t binding and l< 
 
 the ilc chunh and the sup 
 
 ■ 
 onl 
 
 Tht S l grland * n\ erted in the 
 
 S ith. In the North it was made Christi 
 Irish monk I and mm. 
 
 of [ona, who setded under St. Aidan at Lin 
 disfarne* These monks brought with them 
 the peculiar custom of their founder, St. 
 Columban, with regard t<> tin tion of 
 
 1 aster. Thi - led to the fatm \ 
 troversy, in which figured tl.< ted St. 
 
 Wilfrid, the I Daniel of the Anglo Saxon 
 Church. The Fathers of the British Church 
 assembled in synod at Whitby, in the presence 
 of King Oswio. Before them. Wilfrid under- 
 
'/v. 25 1 
 
 >ity of following the 
 Roma >m in this matter in preference 
 
 that < monks, after this \\ ise : M If 
 
 : and \ ■« >ur said he, " refuse to 
 
 the d < >f the Apo See, . . 
 
 without don: sin, For although your 
 
 I ■ h«>ly. is their scanty number in 
 
 remity of an island to he 
 I Church of Christ, 
 wh ; hroughout the world ? And 
 
 it' I >an wa , ■ preferred 
 
 t« i the m I Prince of the Apostles, 
 
 to whom the L<>rd sa Thou art Peter, 
 
 I [e n king ( )swio, turning to 
 
 Iman, the bishop of Lindisfarne, asked 
 him : M Col man, is it true that the Lord said 
 this " It is true, O 
 
 kin-." the bishop replied. "Do you both 
 it any question in this, that these 
 words ially to Peter, and that 
 
 the Lord gave him the keys of the kingdom 
 of heaven ? ' " Yes, indeed," they answered. 
 "Then," rejoined he "in that case I would 
 
I such a dooi I 
 is he, and so far as I know and can, 1 
 to 
 
 in i I rive 
 
 to 
 
 me, when he will have turned his 
 k wh. hold the kej . 
 
 I tion in principle : with 
 
 it Irish I thro igh- 
 
 out all Britain, Wilfrid ura - d 
 
 I n in th< rnment of the Northum- 
 
 brian Church, l» aid the carl 
 
 ipline 
 A: - it the li thi i precur- 
 
 ■ - not 
 
 tined t< i be a I .ike St John 
 
 Chr j incurred the hatred of 
 
 a vengeful queen, or like another Athanasius, 
 he was ed again and again to appeal for 
 
 protection to the S of Rome, and it was 
 only by the authority of tl tign Pon- 
 
 tiff that his enemies, both clerical and lay, 
 were obliged to yield him final justice. 
 
Pope* 253 
 
 All md had become Catholic and an 
 
 ind of saints. Out of die sole royal family 
 
 of King Ethelbert sprang nine canonized 
 
 aainl [Tiirty of those English princes and 
 
 many more of whom retired to 
 
 1 in mona and convents, have 
 
 honors of the Church. 
 
 1 1 .* n more h has come down 
 
 time than that of the historian of 
 
 :\ Church, Saint, or as he is 
 
 I, the venerable Bede. What 
 
 did It of the faith of the Anglo- 
 
 Church think on the necessity of com- 
 munion with the successor of St. Peter? 
 11 1 ! :\" he writes, ,l received in 
 
 ial way the keys of the kingdom of 
 heaven* and the headship of judicial power, 
 that all \y i throughout the world may 
 
 understand that wlv r in any way sepa- 
 
 • them from the unity of his faith or 
 
 iety, such are not able to be absolved 
 from the bonds of their sins, nor to enter the 
 threshold of the heavenly kingdom." To 
 
»54 Th 
 
 the next nion ufu-r I: ] . hclongi the 
 
 learned Ahum, th.' Angj i S ixon priest of 
 York and friend of Charl n ••. Tims kg 
 
 writes to the Chui I yon i - Lei no 
 
 1 itholic dare ntend against the authority 
 
 of the ' hurch. And Ust 
 schismatic an . let him fbBow 
 
 the a] I authority of the hoi] Roman 
 
 c hurch." adds in another place. 
 
 W • Church is all the rest bj 
 
 decrees of synods, but holds its primacy 
 thr authorit) elf, irho nid, 
 
 'Thou art Petei . . Wh, nee it is to be 
 
 understood that holy and I men in all 
 
 part, of the world, shining with the light of 
 
 ind science, not only have not d 
 parted from this holy Roman ( hurch, but 
 also in time of need have implored help from 
 it for the corroboration of the faith ; which 
 thing, as we have already said and | by 
 
 examples, all members of the Catholic Church 
 ought, as a rule, to do : so as to seek from it 
 (the Roman Church) next after Christ, help 
 
The Pop:. 2 55 
 
 to defend the faith ; which (church) not hav- 
 ing spot or wrinkle, both sets its foot upon 
 irons head of heresy, and confirms 
 the minds of the faithful in the faith." 
 
 Th< Archbishop of Canterbury, under 
 
 Norman rule, was Lanfranc. Almost at 
 the beginning of his episcopate broke out 
 between him and Thomas, the appointed 
 :• of York, the chronic quarrel be- 
 tween York and Canterbury about the right 
 ot primacy overall England. Thomas denied 
 Lanfranc's superiority; but was obliged to 
 
 submit in a council held at Winton, of which 
 nfranc thus reports to the Pope : " As the 
 
 est strength and foundation of the cause 
 (th; |, there were pro- 
 
 duced the grants and writings of your prede- 
 <>ry. Boniface, Honorius,Vitalian, 
 S rgius, ( ry, and the last Leo, which, 
 
 fr.»m time to time, for various causes, were 
 given or transmitted to the prelates of the 
 Church of Canterbury and the Kings of 
 England" Both these Archbishops after- 
 
A- 
 
 wards went to Rome to n confirm* 
 
 tiog ol their jurisdiction in their i 
 
 S 
 
 ' he friend of Lanfranc, and his si* 
 in t! " S lerlmry. v n. Ansclni. 
 
 i. in 
 "i the W< stern I Ihurch, but rani 
 most num. nl of Christian philosopher*. \\ 
 
 sentiments with regard to the bishop 
 ' 1 1- dedicates his work o 
 Trinirj to the I lolj i ather in these words \ 
 " ' orasmuch as tl, 
 
 ^*° ommit to your cus- 
 
 tody the lit'-- of kith of i and • 
 
 -"• His Church, to no otb 
 
 reference be more rightl) ma ay- 
 
 thing contrary to the Catholic faith in 
 
 the Church, that it may t> ted by 1 
 
 authority ; nor to any ol 
 which may be written against si be 
 
 mor sly submitl .. by his prudence 
 
 it may be examined ... Let those wh 
 spise the Christian da of the Vicar of 
 
The Pope. 25; 
 
 and in him the decrees of Peter and 
 of Christ, seek for other of the king- 
 
 n of heaven ; (! tainly they shall not 
 
 ter in by those th which the Apos- 
 
 ?( t< r is to lui\ c stolen al- 
 
 most this wise thought from eood kingfOswio. 
 
 o o o 
 
 It is to i i >f surprise then to see this great 
 
 hampion of the I loly See 
 he pretension of the English mon- 
 i by the o >nveyance of investi- 
 ture tual authority to the English bish- 
 bishops of that day to a man were 
 •urtly as they proved them- 
 to be fi Ait i enturies later. In that 
 roi: mi barl time they were often 
 understo* >d better the use of the 
 batl and hunting spear than of the mi- 
 tre or th< But Anselm alone over- 
 kin--, bishops, and barons, in this con- 
 • for the independence of the Church of 
 rist " I prefer to quit your land," he said, 
 "until you acknowledge the pope, rather than 
 
 n for an hour, to St. 
 
77/, P 
 
 Peter an I hi V . . I will run to th< 
 
 of the iin il. the supreme | and 
 
 I the kingdom 
 
 heai en and tl 
 
 quered by tl of hell, and ol hold 
 
 ( in such a manner, thai th< 
 
 de tpised ( In lared himseli 
 
 and In him 
 to th< in like manner, prin 
 
 cipallj \u\ through him to 
 
 the other bishops, and n 
 
 ny king, nor to a duke, no 
 count. . . • Ren the things that 
 
 { I the things thai a 
 
 . . The faith which is I to man 
 
 tak< from the faith which 
 
 to God He who abjures blessed Peter, un 
 doubtedly abjures Christ, who made him 
 prin e o er (all) his Church." 
 
 St. Anselm was a confessor: St Thomas 
 of Canterbury was a martyr. The modern 
 visitor to the old Cathedral of Canterbury can 
 witness with his own eyes the pa 
 
The Pop,-. jSt) 
 
 worn into by the Catholic pilgrims 
 
 of England ascending on their knees to pray 
 before the tomb of the glorious Becket Thus 
 writes he whose blood spilled by the hands 
 of, ins for having resisted a tyrant in 
 
 the same cause with Anselm, has left its 
 stains to this very day on the flags of this 
 old Cathedra] : — 
 
 •• The Fountain of Paradise is one, but di- 
 vided into many streams! that it may water 
 rth. Who doubts that the Church 
 is the head of all the churches, and 
 
 the fountain of Catholic truth? Who is igno- 
 rant that the keys of the kingdom of heaven 
 
 were entrusted to St. Peter? Does not the 
 Structure of the whole Church rise from the 
 faith and doctrine of Peter? . . . Whosoever 
 he l>e that waters or plants, God gives in- 
 to non<\ save to him who has planted 
 in the faith of Peter, and rests in the doctrine 
 of Peter. . , . From the Apostolic See, none 
 but infidels or heretics or schismatics with- 
 draw their faith and obedience." How like 
 
' ' ' »The 
 
 aIihIi .1 | 
 
 is held I h bishop without di 
 
 the whole," and •• unil ,„ the 
 
 ...thechai 
 "' St Augusrin, • 
 nirious, or insane, i ,„• , 
 
 • k ,, -»> prepari -land. 
 
 when would be no loi \ : . elm 
 
 ' un 
 
 kithful | Ni ne hundred 
 
 thr la,ull! tin in England, wh 
 
 ty-eightsu Archbishoj 
 
 bury ha 
 
 llm '' 'I 1 '- after the Council 
 
 "' lU) ^" .! both 
 
 Eastand West, and in ,i in particular, 
 
 had mostsolemnly d ;\ , lU . 
 
 thorityof the Roman Pontiff, a kin ned 
 
 in England as violent and despotic as tl 
 Williams and Edwards and Henries who had 
 reigned before him. After havii d 
 
The /' 261 
 
 the ler of the Faith from the 
 
 for having written against the effusions 
 of Martin Luther, he suddenly discovered 
 n<\\ lights I ' in the eyes of a waiting- 
 
 woman of hi n. He discovered, first, 
 
 that he had been living for twenty years in a 
 >f adultery with a very virtuous woman ; 
 1 when the Pope, not having the same 
 ild not hear of his being separated 
 •11 her on account of this remorse of con- 
 
 1 tndly, that he him- 
 If had been appointed by Christ head of 
 uirch, at least that portion of it com- 
 pri tween the North Sea, St. George's 
 
 annel, the Straits of I >over, and the Tweed. 
 Mis daughter by his first wife, not having 
 ■n illuminated in the same manner, re- 
 turned to the spiritual obedience of the Ro- 
 man See. But his daughter by his second 
 wife, while the first was still living, completed 
 r lather's work, by declaring the Protestant 
 religion the religion of England, and herself 
 it- head. The bishops of England, more 
 
77/, /' 
 co »U3 than under I !< nrv. all except I 
 
 Iminister to her the 
 nation . all ■ . t |, ( . 
 
 ' anterbt vacant by the death 
 
 " , ' inth bishop « 
 
 • 
 to Dean Nicholas \\ 
 
 it historian Heylin, •• desi 
 '"• -till a well Wish 
 
 v ' ' by her 
 
 me i nd authority 
 
 u ' Pari o had been chaplain l 
 
 mol 
 
 bury, and a new chur i n 
 
 1 "I- but not tfa land's A, 
 
 Then the Catholic Church entered upon 
 iN Passion; it was crucified; its enemi 
 thought that it was killed: ii inly * 
 
 buried and hid Was it to i j n 
 
 tlK '- v, ' ar " Ad of Catholic Emand. 
 
 Pation was passed. The Roman I 
 
 in England then wore a handful. pri. n- 
 
The P 263 
 
 try. and common people. Since that time, 
 they have erected [,000 churches, 2,000 
 en ordained, 300 convents and 
 tteries buill : the cities of London, Liv- 
 >1, and Manchester, swarm with Catho- 
 I sinew, in great measure, it is 
 true, from that Ap Isle which did so 
 
 much for the early conversion of England 
 ristianity ; but whatever is best, what- 
 ■ noble, most educated, most high, 
 most 1 >l true, most pure, is coming 
 
 rapidly back to the ancient faith; and, what 
 the most striking sign of all, nowhere 
 more than in that ecclesiastical province 
 which Iges as its head the present 
 
 Archbishop of Westminster, docs there exist 
 among Catholics devoted loyalty and love 
 for the successor of St. Peter in the Apos- 
 the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the Pope 
 Rome, as the centre of unity in the Chris- 
 church, the fountain of true doctrine, 
 source of all spiritual authority, and the 
 Beat of perpetual infallibility. 
 
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