which Christ did not appoint-and which, if expounded by private interpretation, must often lead into error;-and neglect that authority, which he so positively ordained to be our guide. "Go ye and teach all nations.... teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." And yet, I believe, it has been said-not by any member, indeed, of the catholic church--that "the scriptures are the sole rule of faith, and reason their sole interpreter," that is, that each one shall teach himself! St Paul allowed not this liberty to his Corinthian converts. He speaks to them of the gospel which he had preached; which they had received; and wherein they stand: and, by this, he adds, "you are saved," if you hold fast after what manner I preached to you, unless you have believed in vain. (1 Cor. xv. 1, 2.) No choice is allowed: they must believe as he had taught them." "The catholic reader will now be sensible, should any point of his belief seem to receive but little support, or even no support, from any text of scripture,-that its truth is not thereby affected, as its divine origin from Christ, and its descent from the apostles, remain the same; and, therefore, that the doctrine of Purgatory and the Invocation of Saints stands on the same foundation as that of the Authority of the church, though, in support of the former, the evidence of scripture be comparatively weak. Why, or how this has happened, let him say, who hath known the mind of the Lord, and hath been his counsellor." (Rom xi. 34.) "But even where the proofs from scripture are most plain and most abundant, the well-taught catholic does not apply them definitively, as the light of his own understanding may direct him; but he turns to the guide that Christ appointed, that is, the teaching authority of the successors of the apostles; which guide will lead him through the paths of truth, by explainingin what sense the passages of scripture on doctrinal points have, at all times, been understood, expounded, and applied. Such a guide is manifestly necessary when on those points-as it too of ten happens-the meaning of any passage has been made a subject of controversy. For, it needs not be said, how prone to error is the undirected mind of man; and that when he thinks that he follows the evidence of the written word-which must be to him a silent letter,-it is his own fancy that he follows, or the delusive light of a very fallible understanding. Such a guide, says the catholic, can give me no security; while if I wish for subjects on which to exercise the powers of my mind--in which to err indeed, may be easy, but where error would be innocent-they present themselves on every side. On points avowedly above my reach, I wish to risk no decision, nor on collateral subjects connected with them: for errors in religion, I am told, have all arisen from the scriptures misunderstood, or have been maintained by alleged proofs derived from them." "The security which a catholic, well-instructed, experiences in the profession of his belief, resting on the teaching authority established by Christ, must be esteemed a signal blessing. And what adds to it is, that the more he enquires, the more he finds that security confirmed, as he ascends, through the annals of time, towards Christ and his apostles: while the unlettered man, by a few plain documents, is taught, that the guides whom his Saviour has commanded him to follow, can lead him securely into all truths; and that, in trusting them, he trusts in God." "I would ask the soundest reasoner-when I had obtained from him the concession, that it was important to believe the truths which Christ came from heaven to establish; and that, on the admission of those truths, as the same divine teacher had so positively declared, depended future happiness :-I would ask him, I say, were I at a loss by what means to come to the knowledge of those truths-what advice he would give me? Would he advise me to search the scriptures for them, and rely on my own sagacity for the discovery-when I added that, on less important subjects, my own judgment often deceived me; and that, in regard to the meaning of some leading points in the scriptures, there were as many (and as opposite) opinions as there were lines?— Or would he refer me to such a guide as has been described-the speaking authority of the catholic church--which could tell me, in what sense those scriptures, on the points in question, had, at all times, been expounded; and besides, could hold out to me a clue that should safely lead me, through the series of ages, up to the time when Christ himself taught, and the apostles-as he commanded-delivered the doctrines which they had received from him ?" "What his advice would be, cannot be doubted. And I can as little doubt that he would proceed to assure me, that to rely on any other guide, or to oppose to it the guidance of " private judgment" must obviously arise from the most inveterate prejudice, or from the wild conviction, that it mattered not what a man believed, when he chose a guide that could not direct him." "I am then convinced, would the serious enquirer-laying aside every other motive, but what the evidence of common reason would present to him-decide impartially ;-that he must embrace the catholic principle of a teaching authority, resting on the commission given by our Saviour to his apostles, and the concomitant promise of perpetual assistance. But is not this authority an overbearing control? Does it not infringe that liberty of conscience which each one-it is often said--enjoys, of choosing his own faith, and of professing what he has chosen ?" "That man enjoys this liberty in regard to his fellow-man, I am ready to allow. To one another we are not accountable. But is it so in regard of Heaven? When Christ said to his apostles-Go ye and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptised, shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be condemned (Mark xvi.): when he pronounced this solemn threat; if Peter, with his usual promptness, had observed:-Master, shall this be? Shall that liberty be thus taken away, which every disciple should enjoy-of choosing his own faith, and of professing what he shall have thus chosen ?"— I leave it to the person who may be supposed to have made the objection, to say-what, probably, on the occasion, would have been the reply of Christ? I will suggest to him only-what on another occasion he did say to the same apostle: Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art a scandal to me : because thou savourest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men :” (Matt. xvi. 23.) "Notwithstanding what I have said of the authority of teaching pastors, succeeding to the apostles, and exercising their ministry in the propagation of the Divine truths, I am aware that we often speak of the written word, or the scriptures, as a rule of faith. This has arisen from the great authority which those scriptures bear, as the inspired word of God, and as containing the chief points of christian belief. But that they are not to us, as I before expressed it, an independent rule, is manifest, when it is moreover observed, that not only do they owe their integrity to the vigilant care of the church; but that no passage in them, on doctrinal points, is ever explained in any other sense, than as that church in conformity with what she has received, explains them. Hence we lay it down as an introductory and certain principle; "That all that, and that only, is of catholic faith, which God has revealed, and the church proposes to our belief."-" The catholic christian," observes the learned bishop of Meaux, "forms not his faith by reading the scriptures: his faith is already formed before he begins to read reading serves only to confirm what he already believes; that is, to confirm the doctrine which the church has delivered to him."-Conference avec M. Claude, p. 330. "The leading points of catholic faith we embrace—because Christ and his apostles taught them: but Christ and his apostles taught likewise other articles: to those, therefore, we alike submit. To act otherwise, would, surely, be absurd. They come down to us through the same series of receiving and delivering the scriptures confirming their truth, and the fathers in their writings witnessing the legitimacy of their descent. And shall human arrogance here interfere; and because it judges some points to accord better with its notions of truth than others, receive these and reject the others; receive the doctrines of original sin, of the Trinity, of the incarnation and of the atonement; and reject that of the corporeal presence in the eucharist? Or the motive may be, that the scriptures, called in, without authority, to be the sole rule of belief, and arbitrarily expounded, shall seem to speak more distinctly on some points than on others. "It here seems expedient to notice a charge, often urged against catholics, that the use of reason, in the concern of religion, is forbidden to them.-That this should have been said by Deists, who reject all revelation; or by the followers of Socinus, to whose understandings no mysteries are acceptable; I can readily conceive. But I cannot conceive, that it should be heard from men, who themselves believe, that the Divine Being has communicated his will to man, and that in the manifestation of that, may be, and are, not one, but various subjects, placed beyond the reach of human comprehension. by admitting but one single point-let us say that of the incarnation of the second person-not, it is plain, from any evidence in the object, but on the single motive of its having been so revealed, they by this admit a principle on which the whole fabric of catholic belief is centred. For "To make this more plain, let me ask you, who are ready to submit your reasoning powers to this limited suspension-why you are a christian? I am a christian you will answer: because, having maturely weighed the various arguments which prove the authenticity of the Jewish scriptures; dwelt on the prophecies therein contained; and looked forward to their fulfilment, I seemed to discover, in applying those prophecies to a personage who appeared among the Jews in the reign of Augustus Cesartheir probable completion. At the same time a general expectation among nations, and particularly in Judea, selected that period as the season of some great event. Fondly then, I contemplated the birth of that personage with its wonderful circumstances, his character, his conduct, his lessons of morality, his miracles, his sufferings, his death, his resurrection from the dead, and his glorious ascension into heaven-all recorded in the simple language of truth, by witnesses who could have no motive to deceive me. And these witnesses, with their associates in the same cause, afterwards, I found, all died attesting the truth of what they had heard and seen. The personage then, called Jesus Christ, who lived and died as is related, was manifestly, I concluded, the expected MESSIAH, in whom the ancient prophecies were fulfilled and who was sent by God to make known his further will to man. To his lessons I then submit, as to the voice from heaven: I embrace his law-whether it contain moral precepts, the obvious tendency of which I plainly see or it contain mysterious doctrines which I cannot comprehend. the authority of the Teacher is the motive of my belief. weak and limited as I am in all my powers, attempt to measure what may be infinite; or withold my assent, because, having compared what is spiritual with what is earthly, I discover not In these that analogy, or those relations on which my understanding can repose? The establishment of christianity is then to me a fact, to which, by no laborious process of reasoning, I have been conducted; and, being thus far advanced, if I demur, or hesitate to believe from any such motives as have been mentioned,-that same reason which hitherto has been my guide will not fail to tell me, that, in so doing, I act not the part of a christian or of a philosopher:--I have said; why I am a christian. "This reasoning, I admit, is accurately just: but I must be allowed to add, that it is my own and that of every catholic who, from considering the motives of credibility, as they are called, has been led to the belief of the fact of the christian dispensation. But does the excrcise of his reasoning faculties terminate here? It does not; because, from the unhappy divisions of the christian world, he is compelled to go farther. "I will now say; why I am a catholic. But, first, let me observe, that the distinction of catholic and christian, in their original acceptation, was a distinction without a difference. Now, however, it prevails; and has long prevailed to a certain extent, since as early as the fourth century a Spanish bishop, reasoning against the Novatians, who had separated themselves from the church, says: "Christian is my name; Catholic is my surname." It served therefore to denote those, who adhered to and were members of, that great society which in the creed is called The Catholic Church. "I am a catholic then, because I am a christian; and I reason in the following manner: 1. Having been conducted, as has been stated, to the threshold of divine faith, am I not bound to receive as undoubted truths, whatever God in his goodness has taught me by his Son, without demur and without wavering; not enquiring whether they accord with my own preconceived notions, or with the relations and analogies of things conceived in my mind? 2. Would not such demur and wavering, and such enquiry, argue pride and a culpable want of confidence in that Being, whose wisdom, and power and goodness, and love for his creatures, we know to be without bounds? 3. But how am I to learn what truths those are which God has revealed? 4. "Am I to learn them-for eighteen hundred years have now elapsed since first they were delivered-am I to learn them from those records, called the books of the New Testament, wherein are deposited many words and actions of our Saviour's life and conversation, as likewise many rules of belief and practice-or may those truths be collected from any other source? 5. To satisfy this difficulty, should I not enquire whether any rule has been prescribed, which it is my duty to follow, and by following which, I shall learn in perfect security the truths in |