XIX. The Authority of the Church

The Church being designed by God to be the deposit of the Scriptures and of Tradition, we receive from her hand the canonical writings. And whatever our adversaries may maintain to the contrary, it is chiefly on her authority that they receive the " Song of Songs " among their canonical books, which has so little outward appearance of prophetical inspiration ; the Epistle of St. James, which Luther positively rejected, and that of St. Jude, which appears doubtful, on account of the Apocryphal books alluded to in it. Indeed it is only by her authority that they receive the whole body of Holy Scripture, which Christians declare to be Divine before even they have read enough of them to feel any internal conviction that the Spirit of God is in them.

Being then so bound by means of these very Scriptures, to the Church from whose hand we receive them, she bids us, by the authority of which we therein find her invested, listen to her teaching upon Tradition ; for by means of Tradition we interpret the true sense of Scripture. Wherefore the Church declares that she expresses no opinion of her own, and that she adds nothing new to the doctrines she teaches. She follows and proclaims what is divinely revealed to her by the internal direction of the Holy Spirit, Who is her guide.

That the Holy Spirit does transmit His Divine revelations by her, we learn very clearly from the dispute which arose on the subject of the Ceremonies of the Law, in the times of the Apostles, and from their " Acts " we learn, and ages after us will learn also, how this first dispute was decided, and by what authority all others ought to be determined. And whenever Christians find difficulties of this nature to solve, the Church interposes her authority, and her Bishops in Council will say, as then the Apostles said, " It seemeth good to the Holy Ghost and to us."* And when once she has spoken, her children should understand that they ought not to enquire further into the articles upon which she has pronounced judgment, but should humbly receive her decisions. In this they are to follow the example of St. Paul and St. Silas, who carried to the Christians the result of this first decision of the Apostles, and who far from encouraging any fresh enquiries into what had been agreed upon, " went through the cities and delivered the decrees for to keep which were ordained of the Apostles and Elders."f It is thus that the children of God acquiesce in the decisions of the Church, believing to have heard by her mouth the oracles of the Holy Spirit ; and it is on account of this, that we add immediately after saying " I believe in the Holy Ghost," " The Holy Catholic Church," by which we bind ouselves to acknowledge that infallible and perpetual truth must ever reside in the Universal Church, for this Church which we believe to have existed from all ages would cease to be the Church, if she no longer taught the revealed truth from God.

Therefore, all those who imagine she can abuse her power so far as to establish any false doctrine, really prove their want of faith in Him by whom she is maintained. And even if our adversaries look upon these things in a worldly light, they must confess that the Catholic Church, far from wishing to make herself Arbitress of the Faith, as they accuse her, binds herself down, and has neither the means nor the intention of innovating in the least, since she not only submits herself to Holy Scripture, but the better to silence at once all private interpretations of it, which are too apt to be regarded in the same light as Scripture, she has determined to listen to no other interpretations but those of the Fathers as regards matters of faith and discipline, and to these she pledges herself to remain ever faithful, declaring by all her Councils and in all her edicts, that she never receives any dogma which does not conform to the Tradition of the preceding ages. Besides, if our adversaries would ask their consciences, they would find that the name of the Church has more authority with them than they allow in controversy. And I can scarcely think there is any man among them of sound sense, who, judging himself singular in some one opinion, never mind how evident it appeared to him, would not * A, t Acts xvi. 4.

shrink from his peculiarity with horror ; so true is it that we all require in sacred subjects, to be upheld in our opinions by the authority of some society whose feelings go along with our own.

Thence it is that God, who has formed us, and who knows what is necessary for us, intended for our individual happiness, that we should each be subject to His Church, which of all Authorities is no doubt the best constituted, not only by reason of the Witness God Himself gives to it in Holy Scripture, but as well by the marks of His Divine protection which we see exhibited in the inviolable and perpetual existence of His Church, no less than in its miraculous institution.