LECTURE I. |
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REVEALED TRUTH DEFINITE AND CERTAIN |
1 |
LECTURE II. |
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THE CHURCH A HISTORICAL WITNESS |
20 |
LECTURE III. |
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THE CHURCH A DIVINE WITNESS |
36 |
LECTURE IV. |
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RATIONALISM THE LEGITIMATE CONSEQUENCE OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT |
59 |
“This is life everlasting, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.”
MY purpose is to speak of the grounds of Faith; I do not mean of the special doctrines of the Catholic theology, but of the grounds or foundation upon which all Faith rests.
This is a subject difficult to treat: partly, because it is of a dry and preliminary nature; and
partly, because it is not easy to touch upon a matter
so long controverted, without treating it likewise in
a controversial tone. But I should think it a dishonour to the sacredness of truth itself, if I could
treat a matter so sacred and so necessary in a tone
of mere argument, I desire to speak, then, for the
honour of our Lord, and, if God so will, for the help
of those who seek the truth. To lay broad and sure
the foundations on which we believe is necessary at
Nor did it stop here. That same principle of
schism which rent asunder these three kingdoms
propagated itself still further. In each country division followed division.
Each Protestant church,
But there are causes and events nearer to our
day which render it more than ever necessary to
turn back again to the only foundations of certainty,
and lay once more the basis of faith. The establishment so long by many believed to be a Church, a
body with a tradition of three hundred years, up
held by the power of this mighty nation, maintained by the sanction of law and legislature, in
vested with dignity and titles of state, possessing
vast endowments, not of land or gold alone, but of
that which is more precious, of treasures which the
Catholic Church had gathered, and of which it was
rudely spoiled; universities, colleges, and schools:
that vast body, cultivated in intellect, embracing
the national life in all its strength and ripeness, in
an hour of trial was questioned of its faith, and
prevaricated in its answer. It was bid to speak as
a teacher sent from God; it could not, because God
had not sent it. And thus the last remaining hope
of certainty among Protestant bodies in this land
revealed its own impotence to teach. The body
which men fondly believed to partake of the divine
What then do we see in this land? Sects with
out number, perpetually subdividing; each equally
confident, all contradictory: and that dominant
communion which claims to be authoritative in
teaching, itself confounded by internal contradictions of its own. How has this come to pass?
It is because the Rule of Faith is lost, and the principle of certainty
destroyed. Put a familiar illustration: suppose that in this teeming commercial
city, where men, in fret and fever from sunrise to
sunset, buy and sell, barter and bargain, the rules
of calculation and the laws of number were to be
come extinct; what error would ensue, what litigation, what bankruptcy, and what ruin! Or
suppose that in this great mercantile empire, whose
fleets cover the seas, the science of astronomy and
the art of navigation were to perish; the shores of
all the world would be strewn with our wrecks. So
it is in the spiritual world. The Rule of Faith once
lost, souls wander and perish. The effect of this is
that men have come to state, as scientifically certain, that there is no definite doctrine in revelation.
As if, indeed, truth had no definite outline. And
we find in serious and even good men an enmity
against the definite statement of religious truth.
They call it dogmatism. The Athanasian Creed
they cannot away with. It is too precise and too
presumptuous. They feel as men who turn suddenly upon the image of our crucified Lord. They
I. In answer, then, I say, that all knowledge must be definite; that without definiteness there is no true knowledge. To tell us that we may have religious knowledge which is not definite, is to tell us that we may have colour which is not distinguishable. Every several truth is as distinct as the several colours in the rainbow. Blend them, and you have only confusion. So is it in religious knowledge. Doctrines definite as the stars in heaven, when clouded by the obscurities of the human mind, lose their definiteness, and pass from sight.
Is not this true in every kind of knowledge?
Take science, for example. What would a mathematician think of a diagram which is not definite?
What would any problem of physical science be, as
in optics, or in mechanics, or engineering, or in any
Again, take an example from the highest knowledge. When we speak of wisdom, goodness, or
power, we carry our mind upward to the attributes
of God. When we see these moral qualities reproduced in a finite being, we call them still by the
same titles. So with knowledge. What is knowledge in God but an infinite and definite apprehension of uncreated and eternal truth? The
knowledge which God has of Himself and of His works
Observe, then, the distinction between finite
knowledge and definite knowledge. Is not science
definite? Yet it is also finite. The theory of gravitation, definite as it is, is finite too. The theory
of electricity is definite as far as we know it, but
II. But, further, it is evident that knowledge
must also be certain. When we speak of certainty,
we mean one of two things. Sometimes we say,
that a thing is certain; at other times, that we
are certain. When we say a truth is certain, we
mean, that the proofs of that truth are either self-evident, or so clear as to exclude all doubt. This
is certainty on the part of the object proposed to
our intelligence. But when we say we are certain,
we mean that we are inwardly convinced, by the
application of our reason to the matter before us, of
the sufficiency of the evidence to prove the truth of
it. In us, certainty is rather a moral feeling, a
complex state of mind. As light manifests itself
This we call certainty. I ask, then, is there not this twofold certainty in the revelation which God has given? Was not the revelation which God gave of Himself through Jesus Christ made certain on His part by direct evidence of the Divine act which revealed it? Is it not also certain on our part by the apprehension and faith of the Church? Was not God manifest in the flesh that He might reveal Himself? Did not God dwell on earth that He might teach His truth? Has not God spoken to man that man might know Him? Did not God work miracles that man might believe that He was present? What evidence on the part of God was wanting that men might know that Jesus Christ was indeed the Son of God?
And if there was certainty on the part of God
who revealed, was there not certainty also on the
part of those that heard? Look back into the
sacred history. Had not Prophets and Seers certainty of that which they beheld and heard? Had
not Abraham certainty when he saw a dark mist
and a smoking furnace, and a fiery lamp moved
between the portions of the sacrifice? Was not
Moses certain when he beheld the pattern shown
to him on the Mount? Was not Daniel certain
when the angel Gabriel flew swiftly and touched
What, then, is the first condition of faith but
certainty? He that has not certain faith has no
faith. We are told that to crave for certainty
implies a morbid disposition. Did not Abraham,
and Moses, and Daniel, the Apostles and Evangelists desire certainty in faith, and crave to know
beyond doubt that God spake to them, and to know
with definite clearness what God said? Was this
a morbid craving? Surely this is not to be reproved. But rather the contrary disposition is
worthy of rebuke. How can we venture to content
ourselves with uncertainty in matters where the
We are told, indeed, that to be certain is in consistent with faith, that probability is the atmosphere in which faith lives, and that if you extinguish probabilities, faith dies. Did the Apostles then believe the doctrine of the ever-blessed Trinity upon a probability? Did they believe the doctrine of the Incarnation upon conjecture? Was it because they walked in twilight that their faith in their Divine Lord was acceptable?
To what are we come? In this Christian land, once full of light, once in unity with the Church of God, once replenished with truth,—to what are we come? A new virtue is promulgated; to be uncertain of the truth and of the will of God; to hold our faith on probabilities. And yet, what is the very idea of Revelation but a Divine assurance of Truth? Where faith begins uncertainty ends. Because faith terminates upon the veracity of God; and what God has spoken and authenticated to us by Divine authority cannot be uncertain.
I am aware, brethren, that much of what I
have said has no application to you. You are the
heirs of a Divine inheritance. As the science of
astronomy, in its severity and truth, has descended
by intellectual tradition from the first simple observations made on the plains of Chaldea down to
the abstract and complex demonstrations of these
later times, so has the tradition of faith, the science
And now, of those who reject the principles I have stated, and deny to theology the character of definiteness and certainty, I would ask two questions:—
1. First, I would ask, What do you believe?
Put it in words. Conceive it in thought. Fix
your mind’s eye upon it. Put it in writing in
some silent hour: know at least what it is. As
you value your eternal soul, as you believe that
the end of your being is to be united with God eternally, and that the means to that eternal union is
Again I say, put it in words. First, what do
you believe of the Godhead? You believe in the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost? This you hold definitely and without a doubt. What do you believe
of the Incarnation of the Son of God? That in
Him two whole and perfect natures are united in
one person, never to be divided. You believe the
Godhead, presence, and office of the Holy Ghost?
But there remain other articles of your creed. We
come next to “the Holy Catholic Church.” What
do you believe in this article of Faith? Will you
say, “We have definite and certain knowledge of
the former articles, but not of the latter. When
I come to ‘the Holy Catholic Church’ I come to a region where uncertainty is
lawful”? But uncertainty is doubt, and doubt and faith are contradictory. You may not doubt in your baptismal faith,
or be uncertain as to the articles of your creed.
May we make an open question, for example, of the
resurrection of the dead? Why not be also uncertain whether or no the Holy Spirit of God be in
the world now; or, being now in the world, whether He have a present office to
teach? You believe this; but why believe this, and doubt of other
doctrines of the same creed? And if you believe
that the Holy Spirit does still teach the world, how
does He teach? Each several man by immediate
Try therefore to define your meaning. You
say you believe a Church, because your baptismal
faith says, “I believe one Holy Catholic Church:” holy, because the Holy Spirit teaches in it; Catholic, because throughout all the world; and one.
Why one? Why do you say that you believe in
one God? Because there is not more than one
God. Why one Lord? Because not two. Why
one baptism? Because one alone. Why one faith?
Because no other. All these are numerically one.
Why then one Church? Because numerically one;
two there cannot be. Through that one Church
speaks the one Spirit of the one God, teaching the
one faith in which is salvation. Which then is
this true and only Teacher sent from God? You
look about you, and see a Church in Greece, in
2. And further: I would ask another question. I have asked you what you believe; I will now ask you why you believe it; upon what basis of certainty you are convinced of it. and why? Do you say that you have applied the best powers of your understanding to it? So have others who contradict you. Why are you more surely right than they are? You have not had a message from heaven, sent by special indulgence to make you sure, while others wander. What then is the basis of your certainty? The persuasion of your own mind is not enough. At that rate all men are certain. False coins pass in every land; false miracles take the semblance of true. The whole world is full of counterfeits. What I ask you is this: How do you distinguish between your certainty and the certainty of other men, so as to know that their certainty is human, and yours divine? Why are they wrong, and you right? Where is the test to determine this? You know it cannot exist within you, for every body may claim the same. You look then without you and around to find it.
Well, you will perhaps tell us that you have
inherited the faith you hold. The inheritance of
faith, that is a divine principle. We bow before
the principle of inheritance. But why did you cut
You say you have inherited the faith, and that
this is the Church of your forefathers. Go back
three hundred years ago, and ask the priests of
God who stood then at the altar how they would
expound the faith you still profess to hold. Ask
them what they believed while they ministered in.
cope and chasuble. Go back to the Apostle of
England who first bore hither again the light of
the Gospel after Saxon paganism had darkened this
fair land. Ask St. Augustine what he believed of
those words, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock
I will build My Church.” Give your exposition,
and ask his. What would he have taught you of
visible unity? What would he teach you of the
If the disciple and his master, if he that was
sent, and he that sent him, were to come now and
tread the shore of this ancient river, whither would
they turn to worship? Would they go to the
stately minster, raised by their sons in the faith,
If, then, you claim inheritance as the foundation of your faith, be true to your principle, and it will lead you home. Trifle not with it. Truth bears the stamp of God. and truth changes man to the likeness of God. Trifle not with the pleadings of the Holy Spirit within you; for He has a delicate touch, and sensitively shrinks from wilfulness and unbelief. If truth struggle within you, follow it faithfully. Tread close upon the light that you possess. Count all things loss that you may win truth, without which the inheritance of God’s kingdom is not ours. Labour for it, and weary your selves until you find it. And forget not that if your religion be indefinite, you have no true knowledge of your Saviour; and if your belief be uncertain, it is not the faith by which we can be saved.
This is life everlasting, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.”
BEFORE we go on to the subject that stands next in order, it will be well to re-stale the conclusions at which we have thus far arrived.
From these words of our Divine Lord, we have
seen that the end of man is eternal life, and the
means to that end the knowledge of God in Jesus
Christ. Union with God in knowledge, love, and
worship, is life eternal. And that man might
attain to this end of his creation, God has revealed
Himself to us in His Son. We have, therefore,
noted the error of those who say that in Revelation
doctrine is either not definite, or not certain. It
is manifest that all knowledge must be definite; for
if it be not definite, we may have guess, or conjecture, or probability, but true knowledge we cannot
We have obtained, then, two principles; the one, that knowledge, though indeed it be finite, as it must be in a finite intelligence, is nevertheless, so far as it is known to us, perfectly definite. It is as a complex mathematical figure winch we see only in part, but in all we can see is perfect, harmonious, and proportionate, capable of being under stood, calculated, and expressed. Being in the mind of God one, harmonious and distinct, it is cast on the limited sphere of man’s intelligence in its unity, harmony, and distinctness. The other principle is, that the knowledge which God has given us of Himself is, in every sense, certain. We cannot conceive that the contradictory of that which God has spoken can be true, or that Prophets and Apostles were uncertain of what they believed and taught.
And now we will go on to examine what is the
foundation upon which this certainty descends to
us. It is, in one word, the authority of the Church
of God. But this authority of the Church is twofold: it is either the outward and extrinsic, which
I may call the human and historical authority; or
it is the inward and intrinsic, that is, the super
natural and the divine authority. The latter we
must consider hereafter. For the present we will
examine only the outward or historical authority of
All who have traced the history of the faith know that there is no doctrine which has not been made the subject of controversy. Look at the records of Christianity, and you will find that heresy began with the first publication of the truth. In the first age, we find heresies assailing the doctrine of the Godhead of the Father, the Creator of the world. In the next age heresies assailed the doc trine of the Godhead of the Son; later again, the doctrine of the Godhead of the Holy Ghost; next the doctrine of holy Sacraments; later still, the doctrine of the Church itself. A vast schism arose, justifying itself by denying the existence and the authority of the visible Church as such. And because the existence and authority of the visible Church was so denied, the foundation of certainty was broken up, and the principle of uncertainty introduced. Age by age, and article by article, the faith has been denied, until we come down to a period when the characteristic heresy of the day is, not a denial of the Godhead of the Father, or of the Son, or of the Holy Ghost, and the like, though these too are denied, but the denial of the foundation of certainty in faith. The master-heresy of this day, the fountain and source of all heresy, is this, that men have come first to deny, and then to disbelieve the existence in the world of a foundation, divinely laid, upon which revealed truth can certainly rest.
Let us ask those who deny the existence of this basis of certainty, upon what do they rest when they believe in the fact of a revelation? The revelation was not made to them, personally. It was not made to-day. It was made to others: it was made eighteen hundred years ago. By what means, I ask, are men now certain that eighteen hundred years ago, to other men, in other lands, a revelation from God was given? They are forced back upon history. They were not there to see or hear. Revelation does not spring up by inspiration in their inward consciousness. They are, therefore, thrown upon history; they are compelled to go to the testimony of others. All men who at this hour believe in the Advent of the Son of God, and in the fact of the day of Pentecost, all alike rest upon history. Not but that Catholics rest on more (of this, however, hereafter); but they who do not rest upon the divine office of the Church rest on history alone. Then, I ask, by what criterion are they certain that their historical views are true? Let them throw the rule of their examination into some form of words. Unless they can put into intelligible words the principle of certainty upon which they rest, it is either useless or false: useless, if it cannot be stated, for if it cannot be stated, it cannot be applied; false, if the nature of it be such that it will not admit of expression
I would beseech any who are resting upon such
a certainty as this, not to confound a sensation of
positiveness with the sense of certainty. The sense
In answer to this we are told that all men can read the Holy Scriptures, and that this is enough. I reply, Scripture is not Scripture except in the right sense of Scripture. Your will after you are dead is not your testament unless it be interpreted according to your intention. The words and syllables of your testament may be so interpreted as to contradict your purpose. The will of the deceased is the intention of the deceased known by his testament. So of Holy Scripture. Holy Scripture is Holy Scripture only in the right sense of Holy Scripture.
But we are further told, that notwithstanding these superficial contradictions, all good men agree in essentials. First, then, I ask, What are essentials? Who has the power to determine what is essential and what is not? By whose judgment are we to ascertain it? The Church knows only one essential truth, and that is, the whole revelation of God. It knows of no power to determine between truth and truth, and to say, “though God has revealed this, we need not believe it.” The whole revelation of God comes to us with its intrinsic obligation on our faith, and we receive it altogether as God’s word. They who speak of all good men agreeing in essentials, mean this: “I believe what I think essential, and I give my neighbour leave to believe what he thinks essential.” Their agreement is only this, not to molest each other: but they mutilate the revelation of God.
In opposition to these opinions, let us state the grounds of our own certainty.
I. We believe, then, that we have no knowledge
of the way of salvation through grace, except from
the revelation of God. No one can deny this. It
is a truism that we have no knowledge of the way
of redemption by grace except through divine revelation. The whole world is witness of the fact.
For four thousand years the world wandered on,
and knew not the way of grace except by a thread
of light which from Adam to Enoch, and from
Enoch to Noe. and from Noe to Abraham, and
from Abraham to Moses, and from Moses to the
And round about that solitary light, what was there? Was there a knowledge of the way of salvation through grace? The heathen nations, their polytheism, their idolatry, their morality, their literature, their public and their private life, do these give testimony to the way of grace? Take their schools, their philosophies, their greatest intellects, what do they prove? One of the greatest practical intellects of the Eastern world believed that matter was eternal, and that the soul of the world was God. The loftiest of all in speculation was blind when lie came to treat of the first laws of purity. In the west, the greatest orators, poets, and philosophers, either believed in no God at all, or in a blind and imaginary deity, stripped of personality. This was all that Nature had done. Nature without revelation had no true knowledge of God, and absolutely none of salvation through grace.
It was not until four thousand years had passed
that the way of salvation through grace was revealed. Look at the mightiest effort Nature in its
own strength ever made,—the empire of Rome;
that vast power extending itself in all the world;
the whole earth wondering at the onward march of
its victorious armies; races falling back before its
legions; its frontiers expanding whithersoever they
trod; a mighty, world-wide dominion, whose capital
The manifestation of God in the flesh; the effusion of light and revelation through the Holy Spirit; the setting up of the mystical ladder at the head of which the Lord stands, and on which Angels ascend and descend; the gathering together of truths that had wandered to and fro on earth; and the uniting of all in one hierarchy of faith: nothing less was needed before man could know the way of eternal life.
It is certain, then, that we have no natural knowledge of the way of salvation through grace; that is, through the Incarnation, the Atonement, the mystical Body of Christ; through the Sacraments, which are the channels of the Holy Spirit. Without revelation we have no true knowledge of sin, whereby we forfeited our sonship; nor of regeneration, whereby we regain it; nor of the relation of grace to the free-will of man; and the like. But all these are doctrines upon which union with God and eternal life depend, and yet of these not a whisper was heard on earth until revelation came by Jesus Christ.
II. But, further, we believe, in the second place,
that as we have no knowledge of the way of salvation through grace, except from the revelation of
God, so neither have we any certainty what that
revelation was, except through the Church of God.
As the fountain is absolutely one and no other, so
the channel through which it flows is absolutely
one and no other. As there is no source of certainty but revelation, so there is no channel through
which it can flow but the Church of God. For
certainty as to the revelation given eighteen hundred years ago, of the Church we needs must learn.
To what other can we go? Who besides has the
words of eternal life? Shall we go to the nations
of the world? Can they teach the faith which they
knew not before Christ came, neither have since
believed? Shall we go to the fragments of Christendom broken off from age to age by heresy and
Put the case thus. Will you go to the Monophysite, Eutychian, or Nestorian heresies, ancient
And as with early, so with later heresies. Shall we go to the separated Greek communion, which claims to be the only orthodox Church? Will that give a trustworthy testimony? Yes; so far as it agrees with the body from which it departed. Its witness after the separation is but local. Shall we go to the great division of these later times, to the huge crumbling Protestantism of the last three centuries? Is there in it any sect descending from the day of Pentecost? When did it begin? A hundred years ago, probably, or it may be two, or at most three hundred years ago. At that time a traceable change produced it. Does Protestantism reach up ward to the original revelation? Has it a succession of sense, reason, memory, and consciousness, uniting it with the day of Pentecost?
If, then, what has been said as to the only
source and channel of knowledge and certainty be
true, sufficient reason has been shown to make
every one who is resting on the testimony of bodies
Let it be remembered that I am speaking of the external authority of the Church simply as a historical argument. We will confine ourselves for the present to this alone. I put it forward as it was cited by a philosophical historian, one of the greatest of this age, who, having passed through the windings of German unbelief, found at last his rest in the one True Fold. Explaining the ground of his submission, Schlegel gave this reason; that he found the testimony of the Catholic Church to be the greatest historical authority on earth for the events of the past. It is in this sense I am speaking.
And therefore, when I use the word authority,
I mean evidence. The word “authority” may be
used in two senses. It may either signify power,
as the jurisdiction which the Church has over
Suppose, then, we were to reject this highest
historical evidence; suppose we were to say that
the authority of the Catholic Church, though of
great weight, is not conclusive: I would ask, what
historical evidence remains beyond it? To whom
else shall we go? Is there any other authority
upon which we can rest? If we receive not the
authority of the Universal Church, we must descend
from higher to lower ground, we must come down
to the partial authority of a local church. Will
this be to ascend in the scale of certainty? If the
testimony of the Universal Church be not the
maximum of historical evidence in the world, where
shall we find it? Shall we find it in the church of
Greece, or of America, or of England? Shall we
find it in the church of a province, or in the church
of a diocese? If the Universal Episcopate be not
the maximum of external evidence, where shall it
be found? And, in fact, they who reject the evidence of the Universal Church for the primitive
faith, necessarily rest their belief on the authority of
a local body, or on the authority of a man. It was
by divine intuition that our Lord said, “Call none
your father upon earth;” for they who will not believe the Church of God must be in bondage to
human teachers. If they are Calvinists, they must
be in bondage to Calvin; or Lutherans, to Luther;
or Arians, to Arius; or if they be members of a
Thus far we have spoken of the Church as a
mere human witness. To us, indeed, brethren, its
voice is not mere human testimony God has pro
vided for faith a certainty which cannot fail; the
mystical Body of Christ, changeless and indestructible, spread throughout the world. Wonderful
creation of God; but far more wonderful if it be
the creation of man: if, after all man’s failures to
construct an imperishable kingdom, to hold together
the human intelligence in one conviction, the human will in one discipline, and the human heart in
one bond of love; if, after four thousand years of
failure, mere human power framed the Catholic
Church, endowed it with resistless power of expansion, and quickened it with the life of universal
charity. More wonderful far, if it was man’s work
to create the great science of theology, in which the
baptismal formula, “I baptise thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost.” expands into the creed, and the creed again expands
What is the history of the Catholic Church but
the history of the intellect of Christendom? What
do we see but two lines, the line of faith and the
line of heresy, running side by side in every age;
and the Church, as a living Judge, sitting sovereign
and alone with unerring discernment, dividing truth
from error with a sharp two-edged sword? Every
several altar, and every several see, gives testimony
to the same doctrines; and all conspiring voices
ascend into the testimony of that One See, which in
its jurisdiction is universal, and in its presence every
where; that one See, the foundation-stones of which
were cemented in the blood of thirty Pontiffs;
chat See which recorded its archives in the vaults
This is life everlasting, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.”
THE truths which we have already affirmed are these: that the end of man is eternal life through the knowledge of God revealed in Jesus Christ;. that this knowledge of God, being a participation of the Divine knowledge, is definite and certain; and that as there is but one fountain of this Divine knowledge in Revelation, so there is but one channel of this Divine certainty in the Church. We have seen also that the authority of the Church of God on earth is the highest, or maximum of evidence, even in a human and historical sense, of the past; that unless we rest upon this evidence, we must descend in the scale of certainty.
But we have as yet considered the Church only
in its external, human, and historical character:
there still, remains for us a deeper and diviner
Let us therefore proceed to the deeper and diviner, that is, to the interior and intrinsic authority of the Church of Christ. We believe, then, that the interior and intrinsic authority of the Church is the presence of the Holy Spirit; that the ultimate authority upon which we believe is no less than the perpetual presence of our Lord Jesus Christ teaching always by His Spirit in the world.
I. And, first, let us ascertain what points of agreement exist between us and those who are in separation from us. We are all agreed that the only subject-matter of faith is the original revelation of God. They who most oppose us profess to be jealous above all men to restrain all doctrine to the bounds of the original revelation.
We agree; then, at the outset, that the subject- matter of our faith is, and can only be, the original revelation of God. To that revelation nothing may be added; from it nothing may be taken away. As God in the beginning created the sun in the heavens with its perfect disc, and no skill or power of man can make its circumference greater or less, so Divine revelation is a work of God’s omnipotence, and no man can add to it, or take from it. In this also we are agreed. But there are other principles no less vital than these. Let those who are so jealous for this law of truth remember, that as we may neither take from nor add to revelation, so neither may we misinterpret or pervert it; neither fix upon it our private meaning, nor make it speak our sense. We must receive it as God gave it, in its perfect fullness; with its true sense and purport as it was revealed.
It were good, then, if they who are so jealous of supposed additions to the faith, were equally jealous of evident and manifold perversions of the same. It would be well if those who are so hostile to interpretations of Holy Scripture made by the Catholic Church, were equally hostile to interpretations made by every man severally of that same book. Let us proceed more exactly; and as we agree that nothing may be added to or taken from that revelation, so let us jealously demand that no thing in it shall be misinterpreted, nor its sense wrested aside, nor its meaning perverted.
But here begin our differences. How are we
But is it so clear? When the English reader has before him for the New Testament the Greek text, and for the Old Testament the Hebrew text—neither of which languages he reads—where is the self-evidence of his text then? How does he know that the book before him truly represents the original? How can he prove it? How can he establish the identity between the original and the translation? How can he tell that the book before him is authentic or genuine, or that the text is pure? For all this he depends on others.
But let us take this argument as it is stated.
Is Scripture, then, so self-evident that no one who
reads it can mistake its sense? If it be self-evident to the individual, it is self-evident to the
Church. If the text is so clear to every man who
reads it, then it has been clear to every Saint of
God from the beginning. If this book is so plain
II. But let us pass onward. We see that they
who claim to interpret this book, with all its clearness, contradict each other, and that their rule fails
in their own hand. Therefore, the wiser among
Protestants say, that to the text of Scripture must
be added right reason to interpret it. Right reason, no doubt: but whose reason is right reason?
Every man’s reason is to himself right reason. The
reason of Calvin was right reason to Calvin, and
the reason of Luther to Luther; but the misfortune is, that what is right reason to one man is
not so to another man. What then is this right
reason? It means a certain inward intellectual
discernment which each man claims for himself.
But how did he become possessed of it? Whence
did he receive this endowment? And if ho has it,
have not others the same? This right reason which men claim whereby to interpret
Scripture for themselves must be one of two things: either the individual or the collective reason; that is, the reason
of each man for himself, or the accumulated reason
of Christians taken together. But will any man
If, then, this right reason comes to nothing in the individual, does it mean the collective reason of the many? If so, it falls back into a principle valid and certain. What is the collective reason of Christians but the tradition of Christendom? The intellectual agreement of the Saints of God, what is it but the illuminated reason of those that believe? Here we touch upon a great principle; let us follow its guidance.
After the division which rent England from
the unity of the Church, and therefore from the
certainty of faith; when men began to re-examine
the foundations which Protestantism had uprooted,
there arose in the Anglican Church a school of
writers, acute and sincere enough both to see and
to confess that the principle of private judgment
is the principle of unbelief. They began to reconstruct a foundation for their faith, and were
compelled to return once more to the old basis of
Catholic theology. We can trace from about the
middle of the reign of Elizabeth down to the great
revolution of 1688, a theological school which
sprung up within the Established Church, basing
But here we touch upon another difficulty even
more pressing and more vital. We have now the
test by which to discover the truth; but where is
the mind by which that test shall be applied? If
the individual reason be not enough in its own
powers of discernment to interpret the books of
Evangelists and Apostles, one small volume written
with the perspicuity of inspiration—if the individual reason be not enough for this, is it able to
take the literature of eighteen, or even of the first
six centuries, volumes written in many tongues and
in all Christian lands, to make survey and analysis
of them, to gather together and to pronounce what
has been believed by all men, and every where, and
at all times? Even in ordinary things, if the question were, What are those universal principles of
the common law of England which have been held
every where, at all times, and by all common-law
judges, would any individual in ordinary life think
Here then we find ourselves in the presence of the Church. As the subject-matter demands a test, so the test demands a judge. What other judge is there? What other can there be, but that one moral person, continuous from the beginning, the one living and perpetual Church?
And here even antagonists have made great
admissions. Chillingworth, a name in the mouths
of all men as the first propagator of what is vaunted
as the great rule of Protestantism, “the Bible, and
the Bible only,” that same Chillingworth says that
there is a twofold infallibility, a conditional and
an absolute. “The former,” namely, a conditional
infallibility, he, “together with the Church of Eng
land,” attributes “to the Church, nay to particular
churches.” “That is, an authority of determining
controversies of faith according to plain and evident
Scripture and universal tradition, and infallibility
while they proceed according to this rule” Chillingworth’s Works,
vol. i. pp. 276, 277. ed. Oxon.
But if this be so, the Universal Church must be infallible; for if it may err, who shall determine whether it errs or no? “Can the blind lead the blind? do they not both fall into the ditch?” It comes, then, by the force of rigorous argument to this, that either the Universal Church cannot err, or that there is on earth no certainty for faith. If, then, the Church Universal be unerring, whence has it this endowment? Not from human discernment, but from Divine guidance; not because man in it is wise, but because God over it is mighty. Though the earth which moves in its orbit may be scarred by storms, or torn by floods; though upon its surface nations may be wasted, cities over thrown, and races perish, yet it keeps ever in its path, because God ordained its steadfast revolutions: so, though individuals may fall from truth, and nations from unity, yet the Catholic Church moves on, because God created it and guides it.
III. And now we must advance one step further.
Let us proceed to examine this more closely.
We believe that Holy Scripture and the Creeds
contain our faith; that for the meaning of these
we may not use private interpretation, or wrest
them from their divine sense, but must receive
them in the sense intended by God when they were
given in the beginning. To ascertain that sense,
we must go to the Universal Church. Universal
tradition we believe to be the supreme interpreter
of Scripture. When we come to this point, I ask
the objector, Do you believe that this universal
tradition of Christendom has been perpetuated by
the human reason only? Or do you believe it to
be a traditional, divine illumination in the Church? Do you believe that the
Holy Spirit is in the Church; and that His Divine Office is perpetual?
But further than this. “As the sensual man,”
proceeding, that is, by the natural discernment
only, “perceiveth not these things that are of the
Spirit of God,” because they are “spiritually examined,” St.
Is not this our meaning when in the Creed
before the altar we say, “I believe One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church?” And this touches the
point where we differ from those who are without.
The discernment they ascribe to the Church is
human, proceeds from documents, and is gathered
by reasoning. We rise above this, and believe that
the Holy Spirit of God presides over the Church,
illuminates, inhabits, guides, and keeps it; that its
voice is the voice of the Holy Spirit Himself; that
when the Church speaks, God speaks; that the
outward and the inward are one; that the exterior
The ultimate authority, then, on which we believe, is the voice of God speaking to us through the Church. We believe, not in the Church, but through it: and through the Church, in God.
And now, if this be so, I ask what Church is it that so speaks for God in the world? What Church on earth can claim to be this teacher sent from God? Ask yourselves one or two questions.
What Church but one not only claims, but possesses and puts forth at this hour an universal jurisdiction? What Church is it which is not shut up
in a locality or in a nation, nor bounded by a river
or by a sea, but interpenetrates wheresoever the
We are told that all other sects are religions, and may be safely tolerated, but that the Catholic Church is a polity and kingdom, and must therefore be cast out. We accept this distinction. What is this cry but the cry of those who said of old, “We will not have this man to reign over us?” It is the acknowledgment that in the Catholic Church there is a Divine mission and a Divine authority; that we are not content with tracing pictures on the imagination, or leaving outlines on the mere intellect, but that, in the name of God, we command the will; that we claim obedience, because we first submit to it. From the highest pastor to the lowest member of Christ’s Church, the first lesson and the first act is submission to the faith of God.
How blind, then, are the statesmen of this
world: the Catholic Church an enemy of civil
It has indeed a power from heaven which admits no compromise. There is before it this, and this only choice. In dealing with the world, it says: “All things of the world are yours; in all things pertaining to you, in all that is temporal, we are submissive; we are your subjects; we love to obey. But within the sphere of the truth of God, within the sphere of the unity and discipline of God’s kingdom, there is no choice for the Catholic Church but mastery or martyrdom.”
Let us ask another question. What Church
but one has ever claimed a primacy over all other
Churches instituted by Jesus Christ? Did any
Church, before the great division, three hundred
years ago, save that one Church which still possesses it, ever dream of claiming it? Has any separate
In answer it is said, “Yes; but the primacy or
Rome has been denied from the beginning.” Then
it has been asserted from the beginning Tell me
that the waves have beaten upon the shore, and I
tell you that the shore was there for the waves to
beat upon. Tell rue that St. Irenaeus pleaded with
St. Victor that he would not excommunicate the
Asiatic Churches; and I tell you that St. Irenaeus
thereby recognised the authority of St. Victor to
excommunicate. Tell me that Tertullian mocked at
the “Pontifex maximus,” “the Bishop of Bishops,”
and I tell you he saw before him a reality that
bare these titles. Tell me that St. Cyprian with
stood St. Stephen in a point not yet denned by the
Church, and I tell you that, nevertheless, in St.
Stephen’s See, St. Cyprian recognised the chair of
Peter, in unity with which he died a martyr. What
do wars of succession prove but the inheritance and
succession of the crown? What does a process of
ejectment prove but that a man is in possession of
the disputed property? What truth is there that
has not been disputed? Let us apply the argument.
Has not the doctrine of the Holy Trinity been denied? Has not the Incarnation been denied? Is there any doctrine that has not
been denied? But what is our answer to the Arian and Socinian?
To go over the field of this argument would be
impossible; I will therefore take only one witness
of the primacy of the See of Peter. And I will
select one, not from a later age, because objectors
say, “We acknowledge that through ambition and
encroachment this primacy in time grew up;” nor
shall he be chosen from the centuries which followed
the division of the East and West, because we are
told that the exorbitant demands of the West in
this very point caused the East to revolt from unity.
It shall be a witness whose character and worth,
whose writings and life have already received the
praise of history. It shall be one taken from the
centuries which are believed even by our opponents
to be pure,—from the six first centuries, while the
Church was still undivided, and, as many are still
ready to admit, was infallible, or at least had never
erred. It shall be a name known not only in the
roll of Saints, but one recognised in Councils, and not
in Councils of obscure name, but in one of the four
Councils which St. Gregory the Great declared were
to him like the four Gospels, and the Anglican
Church by law professed to make its rule whereby
to judge of heresy. In the Council of Chalcedon,
then, was recognised the primacy of St. Leo.
Throughout his writings, and especially in his epistles, St. Leo’s tone, I may say his very terms,
axe as follows: “Peter was Prince of our Lord’s S. Leon. ad Marc. Epist. lxxviii.
We will ask but one question more. What other Church is there that has ever spread itself through all the nations of the world as speaking with the voice of God? Does Protestantism ever claim in any form to be heard by nations or by individuals as the voice of God? Do any of their assemblies, or conferences, or convocations, put forth their definitions of faith as binding the conscience with the keys of the kingdom of heaven? Do they venture to loose the conscience, as having the power of absolving men? The practical abdication of this claim proves that they have it not. Their hands do not venture to wield a power which in any but hands divinely endowed would be a tyranny as well as a profanation.
And what do we see in this but the fulfilment
of a divine example? Of whom is it we read that “the people were in admiration at His doctrine,”
for this very reason, because “He was teaching them
as one having power, and not as their scribes?” He spake not as man, that is, not by conjecture,
nor by reasoning, nor by quoting documents, nor
by bringing forth histories, but in the name of God,
being God Himself. So likewise the Teacher whom
He hath sent, comes not with laboured disquisitions,
Take Rome from the earth, and where is Christendom? Blot out the science of Catholic theology, and where is faith? Where is the mountain of the Lord’s house which Isaias the prophet saw? Where is the stone cut out without hands, which, in the vision of Daniel, grew and filled the whole earth? Where is the kingdom which the God of Heaven hath set up? Where is the “city seated on a mountain” that cannot be hid? If Rome be taken out of Christendom, where are these? I do not ask what Churches have laid claim to represent those prophecies. Your own reason says it is impossible. But where, I ask, if not here, is the fulfilment of the words, “Lo, I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world?” Where, if not here, is the witness of God now speaking? Where, if not here, is the perpetual presence of the faith of Pentecost?
We stand not before a human teacher when
we listen to the Catholic Church. There is One
speaking to us, not as scribes and pharisees, but St.
“This is life everlasting, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.”
I WOULD fain leave the subject where we broke off
in the last lecture. So far as I am able, I have
fulfilled the work that I undertook. Hitherto the
path that we have trodden has been grateful and
onward. We have followed the steps of truth affirmatively; we have been occupied in constructing
the foundation and in building up the reasons of
our faith. To construct is the true office and work
of the Church of God, as of Him from whom it
comes. I would fain, therefore, leave the subject
here. And yet it is perhaps necessary that we
should turn our hand and put to the test what we
have hitherto said, by supposing a denial of the
truths and principles which we have stated. We
began, then, from the first idea of faith; that God,
Having proceeded, step by step, to this point, it becomes necessary, distasteful as it must be, to turn back, and to undo what we have done: necessary, because truth is often more clearly manifested by contradictories, for in those contradictories we touch at last upon some impossibility, or some absurdity, which refutes itself.
Let it, then, be denied first of all, that the Church whose
centre is in Rome, whose circumference
No other Church but this interpenetrates in all nations, extends its jurisdiction wheresoever the name of Christ is known, has possessed, or, I will say, has claimed from the beginning, a divine primacy over all other Churches; has taught from the first with the claim to be heard as the Divine Teacher, or speaks now at this hour in all the world. Whatever may be said in theory, no other, as a matter of fact, from the east to the west, from the north to the south, claims to be heard as the voice of God.
Deny this, and to what do we come? If we
depart from this maximum of evidence, this highest
testimony upon earth, to the revelation of God, we
must descend to lower levels. Deny the supreme
and divine authority of the Universal Church, and
in the same moment the world is filled with rival
teachers. They spring up in the East and in the
West. The East, with all its ancient separations,
Nestorian, Eutychian, Monophysite, claims to teach.
The West, with all its schisms of later centuries,
the Calvinist, the Lutheran, and the Anglican, urge
the same demand. Deny the supreme office of this
one Teacher, and all others claim equally their privilege to be heard. And why not? It is not for
us, indeed, to find arguments in bar of their claim.
It is for those who adopt this principle of independence
If fleeing for your life you came to a point
where many roads parted, and but one could lead
to safety, would it be a little matter not to know
into which path to strike? If among many medicines one alone possessed the virtue to heal some
mortal sickness, would you be cold and careless to
discover to which this precious quality belongs?
If Apostles were again on the earth, would you be
unconcerned to distinguish them from rivals or deceivers? If there should come again many claiming to be Messiah, would you deem it a matter of
indifference to know from among the false Christs
which is the true? If one comes saying, “You
shall be saved by faith only;” and another, “You
shall be saved by faith and pious sentiments;” and
another, “You shall be saved by faith without sacraments;” and another, “There is a divine law of
sacramental grace whereby you must partake of the
Word made Flesh;” is it a matter of indifference
to you to know with certain proof which of all
these teachers comes from God? Are we not al
ready in the days of which our Lord forewarns us,
that “many shall come in My name, saying, ‘I am
Christ?’” Is it not of such times as these that the
warning runs, “If they shall say to you, Behold St.
To avoid this impossible theory, a view has been proposed since the rise of the Anglican Church as follows: The Church, it is said, does not consist of those who are condemned for heresy, as the Eutychian, the Monophysite, and the like; neither of those who have committed schism, as the Protestant sects; but it consists of the Greek, the Rom n, and the Anglican Churches.
Let me touch this theory with tenderness, for
it is still a pleasant illusion in many pious minds.
Many have believed it as they believe revelation
itself. And if we would have this illusion dispelled, it must be not by rough handling or by
derision, but by the simple demonstration of its
impossibility. If these three bodies, then, be in
deed the one Church, the Church is divided. For
the moment pass that by. If these three be indeed
parts of the same Church, then, as that one Church
is guided by one Spirit, they cannot, so far as that
guidance extends, contradict each other. How
ever directly their definitions may be opposed, yet
in substance of faith they must be in agreement.
Such are the straits to which men under stress of
argument or of events are driven. But these three
The present relation of the Anglican body to the Catholic Church is a refutation final and by facts of this arbitrary theory.
The impossibility of this view has compelled many plain and serious minds to reject altogether the notion of a visible church, and to take refuge in the notion of a church invisible. But this too destroys itself. How shall an invisible church carry on the revelation of God manifest in the flesh, or be the representative of the unseen God: the successor of visible apostles, the minister of visible sacraments, the celebrator of visible councils, the administrator of visible laws, and the worshipper in visible sanctuaries? Here is another impossibility to which the stress of argument drives reasonable men.
Abandoning the scheme of an invisible church,
others have come to adopt another theory, namely,
that the Church of God is indeed a visible body,
the great complex mass of Christendom, but that
it has no divine authority to propose the faith, no
perpetual office, or power to declare with unerring
And yet they have never been able to say how it is that a divine office which flows from the Divine Presence should suddenly come to nothing, the Divine Presence still abiding. If, indeed, the third Person of the Holy Trinity dwell in the Church in the stead of the second Person of the Ever-Blessed Three; if the Spirit of truth be come to guide and to preserve the Church in all truth, how is it that the Divine office, faithfully fulfilled during six hundred years, in the seventh century began to fail? They turn to the state of the world in ancient times, and say, that as the light of truth possessed before the flood faded until the sin of man brought in the deluge; that as the revelation possessed by Noe decayed until Abram was called out of idolatry; that as the truth revealed by Moses fell into corruption, and the Jewish Church became unfaithful; so the Church of Christ, following the same law of declension, may likewise become corrupt
But is it possible that men versed in the Scriptures
Again, it is said that the notes of the Church,
sanctity and unity, are to be put in parallel. There
are promises, we are told, that all the children of
God shall be holy, and that every one shall be
taught of God. The promises of sanctity, therefore,
This is an error in which many minds still are
held. They forget that unity means one in number,
and that sanctity is a moral quality. Again, they
do not distinguish between the sanctity which is on
God’s part, and the sanctity which is on the part of
man. The note of sanctity, as it exists on the part
of God, consists in the sanctity of the Founder of
the Church, the sanctity of the Holy Spirit by
whom it is inhabited, the sanctity of its doctrine,
and the sanctity of holy Sacraments as the sources
of grace. But sanctity on the part of man is the
inward quality or state of the heart sanctified by
the Holy Ghost. This inward sanctity varies, of
necessity, according to the measure and probation
of man; but the presence of God the Sanctifier;
the power of holy Sacraments, the fountains of
sanctification: these divine realities on God’s part
are changeless; they are ever without spot or
blemish, even to the letter of the prophecy. Only
the effect upon those who receive them varies according to the faith of the individual. This is the
true parallel. The Church is numerically one as
God is one. Individuals and nations may fall from
unity as from sanctity, but unity, as a Divine institution, stands secure: “The gifts and calling of
But if, as it is said, the office of the Church to
decide questions of faith has been suspended, then
the world at this hour has no teacher. Then the
command, “Going, therefore, teach ye all nations,”
is expired. The “nations” mean, not only the nations then dwelling on earth, but the nations in
succession, with their lineage and posterity, until
the world’s end. There is no longer, then, a divine
teacher upon earth. If the office of the Church to
teach the truth and to detect falsehood, to define
the faith and condemn heresy, be suspended, we
know not now with certainty what is the true sense
even of the Articles of the Creed. Between the
East and the West, that is between the universal
Roman Church and the local Greek Church, there
are two questions open, both of which touch an
article of the baptismal faith. One point of doc
trine taught by the Catholic Church is this: that
the Holy Ghost proceeds both from the Father and
from the Son. The Greek Church denies the pro
cession from the Son. Who is right and who is
wrong? On which side is the truth in this controversy? Where is the faith and
where heresy between the two contending parties? If the office of
the Church be suspended, there exists no judge on
earth to say who has the truth in this dispute: and
that not touching an inferior article of doctrine, but
But to take another, and a vital question, namely, the primacy of the Church itself,—the power that is vested in the See of Peter to control by its jurisdiction all Churches upon earth. In the baptismal faith we profess to believe in one Holy Catholic Church. Surely the question whether or no there be on earth a supreme head of the Church divinely instituted, is as much a part of the sub stance and exposition of that article as any other point. But yet between the Catholic and the Greek Churches this point is disputed. And if the office of the Church be suspended, there is no power on earth to determine who is right and who is wrong in this contest.
But let us turn from the Greek Church. Let us apply the same tests to the Anglican communion. How many points of doctrine are open between the Anglican and the Universal Church. In the thirty-nine articles of religion, how many points are disputed. How many controverted questions, not with the Roman Church alone, but with the Greek Church also. For instance, the whole doctrine of the Sacraments, their number and their nature, the power of the keys, the practice of invocation, and the like. Then, I ask, if indeed the office of the Church be suspended, who now at this day can declare who is right and who is wrong in these disputed questions?
Nay, we may go yet further, and say, that even
Let us pass on from this point. To deny, then, that the one Universal and Roman Church is now the Teacher sent from God on earth, leads to a denial that there exists in the world any Teacher at all; and to deny the existence of this universal Teacher involves two consequences so impossible, that they need only to be stated to be refuted. If there exists in the world no teacher invested with divine commission to guide all others, either every several local church is invested with a final and supreme authority to determine what is true and what is false; that is, possesses the infallibility denied by objectors to the Universal Church itself; or else, no authority under heaven respecting divine truth is more than human.
Let us examine this alternative. We may pass
by the Greek Church, for it had discernment enough,
when it began its schism, to put forward the claim
to be not a part of the Church, but the true Church;
I will not weary you by tracing out historically
the theory upon which the highest and most honoured names of the Anglican body have attempted
to justify the Reformation. It will be sufficient to
say that pious and learned men have believed as
follows: That in the time of our Saxon ancestors
the Catholic Church in this country possessed a
freedom of its own; that, though in union with the
Holy See, it was under no controlling jurisdiction
that when the Normans came in they established a
civil state upon the basis of the existing ecclesiastical order, and therein perpetuated the freedom and
What was the effect of this theory? It at once invested the local church with all the final prerogatives of the universal. It claimed for it the power within its own sphere to terminate every thing that can be terminated only by the Universal Church under Divine guidance. Though it dared not to enunciate the claim, it had practically assumed the possession of infallibility. It would have been too unreasonable and too absurd to state it, but it acted as if it really were infallible. And what were the effects? No sooner did the Anglican Church begin to determine the controversies of its members than they began to dispute its determinations.
The first separation from the Anglican establishment was made by the Independents. They
Such was the belief of many. Then came a
crisis. You know, and I will do no more than remind
you distantly, how a question touching the first
sacrament of the Church, touching, therefore, the
first grace of Christian life, original sin, and the
whole doctrine of the work of grace in the soul of
man—a doctrine fundamental and vital, if any can
be—was brought into dispute between a priest and
his bishop. The bishop refused to put him in charge
with cure of souls. The priest, not content with
the decision of his bishop, appealed to the jurisdiction of the archbishop; the archbishop, that is, his
court, confirmed the decision of the bishop. The
appeal was then further carried to the civil power
sitting in council. Observe the steps of this appeal.
The bishop here is a spiritual person possessing
spiritual authority, sitting as a spiritual judge in a
spiritual question The archbishop to whom the
appeal is carried sits likewise as a spiritual judge
in a spiritual question, with this only difference,
that whereas his jurisdiction is co-extensive with
the jurisdiction of the bishop, it is superior to it.
When the appeal, then, is carried from the arch
bishop to the civil power in council, what does
that appeal disclose? That the civil power sit
ting in council sits as a spiritual person to judge
in a spiritual question with a jurisdiction like
wise co -extensive, and absolutely superior both to
bishop and archbishop, an office which in the Church
of God is vested in a patriarch. There is no possibility of mistaking this proceeding. It is one of
And now, to what does this reduce the theory
of local churches? It shows that local churches
possess in themselves no power to determine finally
the truth or falsehood of a question of faith. An
attempt was made at that time by men, whom I
must ever remember with affection and respect, to
heal this wound by distinguishing in every such
appeal between the temporal element relating to
benefice, property, and patronage, and the spiritual
element touching the doctrine of faith. It was
proposed that the temporal element should be carried to the civil power sitting in council, as the
natural judge in a matter of benefice or temporalities; and that the spiritual element, or the question
of doctrine, should be carried to the bishops of that
local church. When this proposal was under discussion, these questions were asked: Suppose that
when a question of doctrine is carried to the united
council of the bishops of that local church, a bare
majority of them should decide one way, and a large
minority should decide the other; will the minds
of a people stirred from the depths, excited by religious controversy, moved as no other motive in the
world can move them, by dispute on a point of religious opinion—will they be pacified? will they
be assured? will they hold as a matter of divine
faith the decision of this majority? Again, suppose
that mere number be on the side of the majority,
and that theological learning be on the side of the
But there is another alternative. The crisis we speak of was either a change or a revelation. They who can look into history and see existing these two schools from the reign of Edward the Sixth, and the supremacy of the crown from the reign of Henry the Eighth; they who can follow the religious contests of England for three centuries, and still say that a change has been lately made for the first time, may say it; but they who believe that the judgment then pronounced by the highest legal authorities in this land was a true and accurate historical criticism of the religious compromise called the Anglican Reformation, will also believe that the issue of the appeal of which I speak was not a change but a revelation of what the Established Church has been from its beginning; that from the first the Anglican communion, though clothed in ecclesiastical aspect, appropriating the organisation of Catholic times, sitting in Catholic cathedrals, professing to wield in its own name Catholic jurisdiction, has never been more than a human society, sprung from human will, with definitions framed by human intellect, possessing no divine authority to bind the conscience or to lay obligations upon the soul.
To deny, then, the authority of the Universal
Church as final and sovereign, is to do one of two
things: either to invest every local church with
infallibility, which is absurd; or to declare that
But we must now hasten over one or two other
consequences which might well detain us longer.
To deny that there exists for the faith any higher
than human authority, is to destroy the objectivity
of truth. As the firmament is an object to the eye,
and as every several light in it is of divine creation;
and though all men were blind, the firmament would
stand sure, and its lights still shine no less; so the
faith is a divine revelation, and every doctrine in
it is a divine light; and though all men were unbelieving, the revelation and its lights would shine
the same. The objective reality of truth then does
not depend on the will or the intellect of man; it
has its existence in God. and is proposed to us by
the revelation and authority of God. But how can
this be, if the basis upon which the truth rests for
us be human? Man could not attain to it, else why
did God reveal it? Man cannot preserve it, else
why did he lose it of old? Men cannot assure it to
us, for men contradict each other. Truth never
varies, it is always the same, always one and change
less; contradictions spring from the human mind
alone. The one fountain of truth is God; the only
sure channel of truth is His Church, through which
God speaks still. Cancel the perpetual divine authority which brings truth down to us through the
successions of time, and what is the consequence?
Truth turns into the opinion or imagination of
every several man. The polytheism of the ancient
Let us come to the present time. What are the sects of England but offspring of the subjective forking of the human mind, striving to regain the divine idea of the Church as a teacher sent from God? The Reformation destroyed the objective reality of that idea, and the human mind has created it afresh in eccentric forms for itself. In like manner, false doctrines, fanatical extravagances, and perversions of the truth, what are they but struggles of the mind of man to recreate within his own sphere the truths of which the objectivity is lost?
To deny, then, the divine authority of the Universal Church, and thereby to make all authority
for faith merely human, is to convert all doctrine
into the subjective imagination of each several man.
It becomes a kind of waking dream. For what is
dreaming but the perpetuity of human thought running on unchecked by waking consciousness, which
pins us down to order and rule by fact and by
reality? In sleep the mind never rests; it still
weaves on its own imaginations. When we sleep
perfectly, we are unconscious of what is passing in
Take, for example, the Rationalism of Germany. In its first age, after the Reformation, Lutheranism was rigorously orthodox until it became insufferably dry; and then the soul in man, thirsting for the waters of life, of which it had been robbed, sought to satisfy itself in a sentimental piety, and by recoil cast off orthodoxy as a thing dead and intolerable. This reaction against definite statements of doctrine at a later stage produced the theory that the whole truth may be elicited from the human consciousness. From whence in the end came two things: one, the theory that sin had no existence; that it is a philosophical disturbance of the general relations of the Creator and the creature; the other, that a historical Christ had never any existence. Such are the results of the subjective states of the human mind when the objective teaching of divine authority is lost.
And now, one more consequence must be noted. When the objectivity of truth is lost, the obligation
of law is gone. What is it that binds us by the
laws of moral obligation? I pass by the mere laws
of nature. I speak now of those higher laws which
come from revelation, and I ask, What is it which
binds the conscience? The Divine will revealed in
those laws. But on what authority are these laws
assured to us? and by whom interpreted? Is it by
human authority? Can one man bind another by
moral obligation to take his view or interpretation
of the will or law of God under pain of sin? Can
he put forth his view as a term of communion, if
communion be a condition of life eternal? Is it
possible for a creature to bind his fellow-creatures
under pain of sin unless he possess Divine authority
to do so? The laws of God do not bind His creatures unless they are made known to them; though,
in right, they bind all creatures eternally, yet. in
fact, they need revelation to bring home and apply
their obligations to the conscience. A doubtful law is not present to the conscience. If a law is uncertain, it is no law to us. It must be clear and
definite both in its injunctions and its authority. I
ask, then, what is the source of clearness and definiteness in the law and truth of God but the Divine
authority of God, not eighteen hundred years ago,
but in every century since, in every year, in every
day, in every hour, brought home to and in contact
with the moral being of each man? Let us take an
example. Is it not a law, binding under pain of sin
Let us pass to one more point, and it shall be the last. When the divine authority, the objectivity of truth, and the obligation of law applied to us by that divine authority, are gone, where then, I ask, is revelation? “This is life everlasting, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.” Hither have we come down, step by step. We have descended as we ascended. We have come down from the highest round of the mystical ladder, at the head of which is the Divine Presence, to the cold ground, barren and bleak, to natural morality and natural society, to human intellect and human conjecture.
We read in prophecy that Antichrist shall come:
and in the heated imagination of schismatics and
heretics Antichrist has been enthroned in the chair
of the Vicar of Christ Himself. But if I look for
Antichrist, I look for him by this token, “Every
spirit that dissolveth Jesus is not of God, and this
is Antichrist.”
And now, finally; when I began I said that I
spoke not as a controversialist. I should feel this
subject were dishonoured, if I were to treat it as
a mere argument. Greater things than argument
are at stake,—the honour of our Divine Lord and
the eternal salvation of souls. How great is the
dishonour, of which men think so little; as if truth
were a sort of coin, that they may stamp and
change, and vary its die and fix its value, and make
it in metal or paper as they will! They treat the
truth as one of the elements of human barter, or
as an indulgence which a man may hold and use
for himself alone, leaving his neighbour to perish. “This is truth to me; look you to what you
believe.” What dishonour is this to the person of our
Lord! Picture to yourselves this night upon your
knees the throne of the Son of God; cherubim and
seraphim adoring the glory of Eternal Truth, the
changeless light of the Incarnate Word, “yesterday, to-day, and for ever the
same;” the heavenly
Think too of the souls that perish. How many are brought into the very gulf of eternal death through uncertainty! How, as every pastor can tell you, souls are torn from the hand which would save them by being sedulously taught that the deadliest sins have no sin in them; by the specious and poisonous insinuation that sin has no moral quality; how souls have first been sapped in their faith as Satan began in Paradise, “Yea, hath God said?” that is, God hath not said. This is perpetually at this hour going on around us; and whence comes it? Because men have cast down the divine authority, and have substituted in its place the authority of men, that is, of each man for himself.
And now, what shall I say of England, our own
land, which a Catholic loves next to the kingdom
of his Lord? It is now in the splendour and majesty of its dizzy height, all the more perilous because so suddenly exalted. What is the greatness
And now, last of all, let me ask another question What, for three centuries, has been the history of the Faith in England? I pass over the controversy of the Reformation, first, because we are of
one mind about it, and next, because it would but
beg the question of an objector. I would ask, Is
it not an undeniable historical fact, that from the
time of Queen Elizabeth down to the time of the
revolution of William the Third, there was a perpetual diminution of belief in England, and a perpetual growth of infidelity and scepticism, until,
after 1688, the free-thinking philosophy formed for
itself a literature that stood high in the public
favour of England? The Established Church had
wasted itself by internal conflicts. It lost its most
zealous members by perpetual secession and by the
formation of a multitude of sects. Though the
Prayer-book and the Articles were unchanged, the
living voice of the Church, that is, its true doctrine,
varied continually from doctrinal puritanism to Arminian Anglicanism. The clergy spent themselves
in domestic controversy; while the laity became
worldly, latitudinarian, and unbelieving. And yet
Then began a reaction. Take the history of the
last century and of the present, and tell me whether I do not truly describe the intellectual progress of England when I say that there has been
one continuous and ascending controversy from the
beginning of the last century to this hour? First,
it was a controversy against Deists, to establish the
fact of revelation. Next it was a controversy against
sceptics, to prove the inspiration and authenticity
of Holy Scripture. Then it was against Arians in
proof of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Then it
was against Socinians on the doctrine of the In
carnation. Then the controversy of the day was on
the doctrines of grace. At a later period of the last
Are these things without a purpose? If there
be any here who is still without the Divine tradition of the Faith, let him see in these facts the
tracings of the finger of God. which, as the hand of
a man upon the wall, show His purpose The Divine authority of the Universal Church is again
among us, and lays again its obligation upon your
conscience. He calls you, whoever you be, to submit to his teaching, to exercise the most reasonable
act of all your life, to bow your reason to a Divine
Out of the Catholic Church two things cannot be found, reality and certainty; in the Catholic Church these two things are your inheritance. Then tarry no longer. “With the heart we believe.” It is not a struggle of the intellect, and I am not contending with you in an intellectual contest. I call upon your will to make an act of faith. Preventing grace illuminates the understanding, and moves the will, but there tarries. It tarries that it may put man on his probation, to see whether he will correspond or no to the light that has been granted. Correspond, then, with the light you have received. Answer while yet you may: “Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth, My heart is ready. Not Thy truth fails, but my faith is weak. I do believe, Lord; help my unbelief.”