Sermon I. The Church, the Spirit, and the Word

At the opening of the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Lanark, Nov. 10, 1859.

EGBERT MONTEITH, ESQ., OF CARSTAIRS.

DEAR MR. MONTEITH,

No one can feel more than I do how little worthy the following Sermon is as a statement of the great truths contained in it; and but for the wish of others, I should have rather let it pass with the day which called for it. But if it shall help to keep in your mind the happiness of a day in which you made your beautiful and noble offering to the Church of God in Scotland, or to show to so much as one of the many who, though ' not of us/ were with us that day, that the true Headship and Sovereignty of Jesus Christ over His kingdom is to be found alone in the One Church which is Catholic and Eoman, I shall not regret letting it, with all its insufficiency, go abroad.

Believe me always

Very sincerely yours,

H. E. MANNING.

St. Mary of the Angels, Bayswater, Christmas 1859.

THE CHUKCH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WOKD.

This is My covenant with them, Baith the Lord: My Spirit that is in thee, and My words that I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever. ISAIAS lix. 21.

The glory of Israel had departed, for ' the word of the Lord was precious in those days; there was no manifest vision:'1 'the prophets prophesied falsehood, and the priests clapped their hands, and the people loved such things.'2 The illuminations of the early days of Israel were gone, the visitations of the Spirit of God were few, and the messages of the word of the Lord were seldom heard; for ' truth had fallen down in the streets' of Jerusalem, ' and equity could not come in.'3 The people of God were without guide and without teacher. They wandered out of the way of the Lord: Jerusalem was full of blood, 1 1 Kings iii. 1. 2 Jeremias v. 31. 3 Isaias lix. 14.

the covenant of the Lord was forgotten, and the Temple of the Lord was profaned.

And it was at such a time, when Israel killed the prophets, and stoned those that were sent unto her, that the word of God came to Isaias, and he said: ' Thy teachers shall not flee away from thee any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teacher, and thine ears shall hear the word of one admonishing thee behind thy back, saying: This is the way; walk ye in it, and go not aside, neither to the right hand nor to the left.'4 ' All thy children shall be taught of the Lord.'5 They shall follow no more any human teachers, but a divine: no more, teachers that can be removed, but one that shall be perpetual: ' for this is My covenant, saith the Lord: My Spirit that is in thee, and My word that I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever.' That is, there shall come a day when thou shalt have a teacher in the midst of thee who shall not err, who cannot mislead, whom thou shalt follow in safety; for ' a path and a way shall be there, and it shall be called the holy way; the unclean shall not pass over it; and this shall be unto you

4 Isaias xxx. 20, 21. * Ibid. liv. 13.

a straight way, so that fools' — the simple and the unwise — ' shall not err therein.'6

How, then, were these great words of the prophet fulfilled? They were accomplished when the Word of God became incarnate, and the Spirit of God descended upon the Incarnate Word — when ' the Word, which in the beginning was with God and was God, was made flesh, and dwelt among us,'7 — when, being manifested by His Incarnation, the Eternal Word stood up in the synagogue at Nazareth, and read out of this book of the prophet Isaias: * The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me: wherefore He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel: to the poor He hath sent Me. This day this Scripture is fulfilled in your ears.'8 The Eternal Word of God, incarnate and anointed by the Holy Ghost, rose up in the midst of His people Israel, to be their Teacher and their Guide, and the Word and Spirit of God were revealed to dwell perpetually in the midst of His Church. This, then, was the first fulfilment of the prophecy; and for three-and-thirty years the Word and the Spirit of God dwelt in Israel. Once more the word of God was heard throughout the streets of Jerusalem. There was not only a prophet, but the Lord of the prophets; not a seer, but He by whom

6 Isaias xxxv. 8. 7 St. John i. 1, 14. 8 St. Luke iv. 18, 21.

the seers were illuminated. He was come Himself. The Eternal Truth was personally there, and the Holy Spirit of God was with Him in our manhood; for the Son of God was incarnate, and the Holy Ghost rested upon Him. Israel then had a divine Teacher, and an infallible Guide; and the words of the prophet were fulfilled, that He would l set up one Shepherd over them, and He shall feed them, even My servant David: He shall feed them, and He shall he their Shepherd.'9

I ask you, then, were these words spoken to them alone? Was this promise of the perpetuity of the Word and of the Spirit made only to the people of God of old? Is it not also made to us? Is it an inheritance that was cut off when the Son of God ascended into heaven? When He went up on high to assume the royalties of His kingdom, and to reign by His eternal prerogatives over the sons of men, did the perpetuity of the covenant of the Spirit come to an end? Are we disinherited of these promises of eternal truth? No. ' This is My covenant:.. heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.' You, then, are the heirs of this great promise; with you also this covenant is made; you share in the perpetuity of the 9 Ezekiel xxxiv. 23.

Spirit which is in Jesus, our great High Priest and King. You share also in the word which was put in His mouth. And how is this accomplished? When He ascended up on high, He did not depart from His Church on earth. ' Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.'10 When He withdrew His visible and personal presence, it was replaced by a universal, supernatural, and mystical presence, as real, divine, and true as the presence which is visible to the eye. He promised that when He ascended up on high, He would ask the Father to send another Paraclete, that He might abide with us for ever, even the Spirit of Truth.11 He said, ' It is expedient for you that I go; for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him unto you.'12 It needs must be that the Son of God should depart; for the order of the divine economy, and the succession of the divine revelations, required that * Jesus should be glorified,'13 before the Spirit should be given. And when He ascended up on high, He poured down the same unction with which He Himself was anointed. On the day of Pentecost the Holy Ghost descended on His twelve Apostles, and they were quickened

10 St. Matthew xxviii. 20. " St. John xiv. 16, 17.

12 St. John xvi. 7. " Ibid. vii. 39.

into life as one body.14 Twelve men, united before in outward fellowship, chosen, commissioned, and empowered under the broad seal of the kingdom of Jesus to go throughout the world and subdue all nations, and to knit them together in one great unity. Nevertheless they were as yet isolated, until the Holy Spirit of God, descending on them, quickened them as one living body — knit them together with so perfect a unity of life, that henceforth they became the one temple of the Holy Ghost, and the one organ of His voice.

I. The anointing which was upon Jesus, the Son of God Incarnate, the great High Priest, the true Aaron, descended upon the skirts of His garments; and the Apostles were therefore anointed with the sacerdotal unction which is the Spirit of Truth; and the Word, never more to depart from them, was put into their mouth. For when that one body was constituted in the guest-chamber in Jerusalem, there came into existence a creation which the world had never known before. It was the fulness of the mystery of the Incarnation — the prolongation of its presence upon earth, the extension of its powers, and the creation of the mystical body. The Divine Head was in heaven, but as yet His members were not

14 Ephes. iv. 4-16.

knit together on earth, until the Holy Spirit descended. Then the second Adam rose, as it were, out of the dust. The mystical presence of Jesus, Head and members, lived on earth. We read in the book of Acts, that when the Holy Ghost descended in the outpouring of the flames of light which crowned His Apostles, parted tongues of fire sat on each of them; severally and distinctly they were filled; severally and one by one they were illuminated; the Spirit was in them one by one, and the Word was put in their mouth. But, farther, the sacred text goes on to say, ' And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.' The whole body was knit together in one: it had a corporate existence, it was filled with the Spirit of God, and became the dwelling-place of His illumination, and the organ of His word. So that, beyond the office which the Holy Spirit of God had always accomplished upon earth — the illumination and the sanctification of all the faithful, from Abel the just till the day of Pentecost— there was another office and another work assumed on that day; I mean, the illumination and the guiding of the Body of Christ; that is, of a corporate society, as an organ through which His voice might be heard throughout the world. It is the visible and corporate presence, by which the invisible Spirit of God is made manifest. The Holy Spirit of God united Himself on that day to the mystical body of Christ, after the analogy of the Incarnation. As Godhead and manhood are united in one person, never to be divided, by the indissoluble link of the hypostatic union, so the Holy Spirit united Himself to the mystical body on that day, never to depart from it; to be its life, guide, and voice to the end of time.

The Church of God had then first its perfect fulness. It was then endowed with its supernatural prerogatives. It received from its Head the communication of the divine and imperishable powers which He Himself had exercised on earth. It be-came the divine teacher of the world. It had a light which could never waver, it had a voice which could never falter. It partook of the communicable attributes of the Spirit of God. It was His representative. It was to be the witness, and the teacher, and the judge of divine truth upon earth. The Apostles became kings and priests, anointed teachers of the Word, guides that could not err. From that hour to this the prophecy has been accomplished. It was not for that first age alone. Its perpetuity was pledged by the prayer of the Son of God: ' I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you for ever.' I indeed abide with you for a time: My abiding is for a time. I shall depart unto My Father; but the Paraclete, whom I shall send, He shall abide with you for ever. And therefore the Holy Spirit of God, who came on the day of Pentecost to inhabit the mystical body, is in the world at this hour, in all the plenitude of His prerogatives, and in all the fulness of His divine office as Guide and Teacher. He dwells in the world now, teaching by the same divine and infallible voice.

II. The twelve Apostles in Jerusalem were the germ and commencement of the Church of God, which, descending from the upper chamber, spread throughout the world, and knit together all nations in one faith, one baptism, one body, and one spirit. The nations of the world lost their separate existence, and were merged in a higher unity. The separation of their natural origin was redressed — they were taken up into the supernatural unity of the kingdom of God. They became the world-wide sanctuary of the Holy Ghost, and the channel of the voice of the Spirit of Truth. The Apostolic College spread throughout all the world, and passed into the universal episcopate. The words put in the mouths of the Apostles passed from succession to succession into the mouths of the pastors and bishops of the universal Church. The whole world was filled with the presence of the Divine Teacher, from whom the Spirit and the Word could never depart. Therefore the Apostles when assembled in Jerusalem made their decrees in these words of divine power: ' It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay no further burden upon you than these necessary things.'15 What words are these for men to speak! ' Who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counsellor?'1G Who can declare the mind of the Holy Ghost? This was their prerogative, this was the endowment bestowed on the Church of God. It could speak in the name of the Holy Ghost, because it could discern by His light, and decree by His assistance. In every age of the Church, from generation to generation, from century to century, the same perpetual presence pledges to the Church the same perpetual assistance, and endows it with that same perpetual prerogative to say, ' It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us.' There is, then, fulfilled now to you and to me this promise of the Lord by the prophet; there is now a path and a way, which is the way of holiness — a way in which the simple and the unlearned shall not err. There is a voice behind our back, saying,

15 Acts xv. 28. 16 Eom. xi. 34.

' This is the way; walk ye in it,' that we turn not to the right hand or to the left. There is an infallible teacher among men. There is a voice speaking throughout the whole world, which they who follow shall follow into all truth. God has not forsaken His Church; Jesus has not departed from it. Though enthroned in heaven, He is in it still. The Church itself is Jesus teaching and reigning upon earth: by His Spirit and His Word, He is present still, and will be, to the consummation of the world.

III. And where now is this Church? If only we could find it, if only we could know where the divine voice is to be heard, if only we could discover where this organ is, all controversy would be at an end. Men would beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; there would be no more jangling of words, no more clash of arguments, no more battle of reasons, no more conflict of intelligences, no more struggles of heated wills in the arena of religious animosity. All these things would be extinct, and the weapons of spiritual warfare would be beaten into useful implements of tillage and of husbandry for the vineyard of the Lord. Where, then, is this Church to be found? There is one sure test by which we may find it. The Apostles were united with Peter. He was first among them.

He was the head of all. They took no separate acts apart from him. They taught no other doctrine than the doctrine of Peter. They laid no other foundation. All their prerogatives they held in common with him. The keys of the kingdom of heaven which they hare were given first into Peter's hands. They had stood by and heard from the lips of the Incarnate Word Himself, anointed by the Holy Ghost: ' Thou art Peter; and on this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; and unto thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, it shall be bound in heaven.'17 Peter then was their head; he was their chief in that Apostolic College which, on the day of Pentecost, was the organ of the Holy Ghost. Has he ever ceased to be so? Who stands in Peter's place at this hour? Is there any successor to his authority? The whole world believed of old that Linus Bishop of Eome succeeded to Peter, when he ascended from the cross of martyrdom to the throne of his Lord; and to Linus, Cletus. Kome was the centre of that one universal Church of all nations then. This is undisputed; it is beyond controversy. The untroubled page of history in those early days, to which some profess to appeal, attests the fact that 17 St. Matthew xvi. 19.

there was then hut one Church on earth. There was no second — no other — none like it, none heside it; and the centre and head of that Church was the centre and head of the Christian world. It was the city of Kome, and in that city of Kome the See of Eome, the apostolic throne on which sat the successors of the Chief of the Apostles of Jesus Christ. No one doubts this as to history in the past; but the history of the past is supposed to lay no jurisdiction over our consciences now. Men treat history as an idle page, which they may read for their amusement, but refuse as a guide for their consciences. And yet it is indubitable that the one only Church of God, the circumference of which rested on the sunrise and the sunset, had a centre, and that centre was in Rome. Take it then as a mere matter of fact. The Divine Architect, in describing the circuit of His kingdom on earth, placed one foot of His compass in the city of Eome, and with the other traced a circumference which included the whole world. The annals of the Church in succession recognise the Bishop who sat in Peter's seat as head among the Bishops of the world. I need not wear away your time by citing testimonies. Any one who will take the page of history may read it. I raise no claim, as yet, to anything beyond the fact. If, then, Rome was the centre, of old, of that only apostolic body which was the dwelling-place of the Holy Ghost and the organ of His voice, what is now the centre? and which is now the Church? What is the centre and circumference of that one Church of God which fills the nations of the world at this moment? All the controversies of three hundred years tell us that it is the See of Borne. Nay, out of the mouth of controversial historians we have the assertion that for the last twelve hundred years, the Bishop of Home, in the amplitude of his pretensions, in the vast usurpation of his spiritual power, in that mighty and intolerable claim to universal Pontificate, has ruled by tyranny over the whole Church of God. We have then, at the beginning and at the ending, the same head and the same centre. Nor will it be difficult to connect together this long line of many links, from the martyrdom of St. Peter to the Pontificate of Pius the Ninth. If you were to see one of those vast and voluminous rivers, of which we are told that in some part of their course they suddenly bury themselves in the hollows of the earth, and then burst forth, with an exuberance of power, at some distance down their stream; would any man be held to be a reasonable being who should maintain that the river which buried itself was one stream, and the river which burst out afterwards was another, without continuity and without identity? Should we not at once affirm that it was one and the same mighty water forcing itself first beneath the earth, and then from it? How, then, can the one only stream which flows down from the first fountain, the only Church over which this unbroken, imperishable line of Pontiffs, from the cross of St. Peter to the throne of Pius IX., have reigned sovereign and supreme, be other than the one only Church of God? By that one long chain of Pontiffs, two hundred and fifty and more, linked in perfect continuity, connected as indissolubly as the generations of men and the successions of time, we are in direct contact now, through the person of Pius IX., with St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles and Yicar of Jesus Christ. There was never any other Church beside it. Do we not know when every other Church, so called, came into existence? Every other separate body had its origin at some period in that long line of history, and is marked and dated in the stream of time. We can find the very day when a Pope's Bull was burned in a city of Germany; we can find the very hour when some late protest against the faith of the Church of God was issued; we know the time when every separate community claiming to be a church came first into being.

c

Where, then, I ask, is the promise of the prophet? ' My Spirit that is in thee, and My word that I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever.' Has that one only Apostolic Church of God heen disinherited, discrowned, unanointed? Has the word been taken from its mouth? How can that word pass from its mouth, if the Holy Ghost has not passed from His dwelling-place? If, as on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit of God dwells in the temple which He created for Himself, then that one body is divine; then that one voice of God, the Holy Ghost, speaks now with the same unfaltering and infallible accents with which He spoke on that day. It follows therefore that the one organ of the Spirit of God throughout the world at the present moment is the one Church, Catholic and Roman; that one only Roman Church; Roman still, though it be diffused throughout the world in its vast episcopate; Catholic still, though gathered in council, as in the upper chamber in Jerusalem; Catholic in the person of its Pontiff; for it is the whole Church that spoke through the lips of the Yicar of Jesus Christ, when but the other day he defined to the world by his infallible voice the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God. Jesus, therefore, speaks through the same body now as then; and the endowments of the body are the prerogatives of the head; the fulness of light and guidance which the Holy Spirit of God gave to the whole Apostolic College resided in him who was the chief of all. This is the promise of our divine Lord, when He said, ' Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you' — that is, all of you — 'that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee' — that is, for Peter — ' that thy faith fail not; and thou being once converted, confirm thy brethren.'18 This promise is the pledge of perpetual stability in faith; and as the endowments of the body are the prerogatives of the head, so the illumination which is diffused throughout the whole body of the Church resides eminently in the Episcopate, but resides preeminently and above all in the chief of Bishops, the Pastor of pastors, the Vicar of the Incarnate Word Himself. Here then we have the fulfilment of the prophecy; for what is the Vicar of Jesus Christ but the representative of Jesus Christ, — the true, special, personal witness, — the very presence, so to speak, of the Son of God on earth? And as the prophecy of Isaias was accomplished when the Son of God was incarnate and rose 18 St, Luke xxii. 31, 32.

up to teach in Nazareth, anointed by the Holy Ghost, so His representative and Vicar now stands in the midst of the world, the true, special heir of those promises; and on his anointed head rests the Spirit of God, never to depart, and in his mouth the word of God, which cannot pass away. He is the oracle, the organ, and the living voice through whom the Spirit of God accomplishes to this hour the prophecy, and the promise.

1. And now from this it follows, that the doctrines of that one Church are divine. Therefore they are not doctrines added, changed, corrupted, as men would fain have you to believe. The doctrines of that one Church of God are the doctrines of the Holy Ghost. If they be doctrines of the Holy Ghost, they are incorrupt, even as the light of heaven; they are incorruptible even as the Holy Ghost Himself; they are primitive, for they are the doctrines which He delivered in the guest-chamber; they are pure, because they have not the soil or taint of a human intellect upon them. They are transcendent, indeed; they surpass the reason of man. The doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, of the substantial presence of the Body and Blood of Jesus, must indeed surpass the reason of man, as also does the Incarnation. If any man will not receive the doctrine of the substantial presence of the Son of God in the Holy Eucharist, how and with what consistency does he profess to helieve in the Incarnation of God? The doctrine of absolution is indeed transcendent, — that a man on earth should have the power to say, ' I absolve thee from all thy sins.' But the Pharisees of old anticipated the objection; for when Jesus Himself said, ' Thy sins are forgiven thee,' they rose up and said, 1 This man blasphemeth; who can forgive sins but God only?'19 Doubtless the doctrines of the Catholic Church, the doctrines of the Council of Trent, are transcendent, as they exceed and surpass the limits of the unaided human reason. And it may be that, if I began to speak of the invocation and communion of Saints, of the expiations of the world unseen, and other mysteries of a like sort, to some among you I might seem to be, as the Apostle at Athens, ' a word-sower' and ' a setter-forth of new gods.'20 The doctrines of God bear the impress of the hand of God; the mark and the dimensions of the hand of God are on them. If they bore the impress of a human hand, they might have been of human manufacture; but because they bear the token and the symmetry of the divine hand which, by the Holy Ghost, gave them to the Church, their very 19 St. Mark ii. 5, 7. 20 Acts xvii. 18.

transcendent vastness is a testimony and an evidence that they are from God. They come to us to be received by faith; not by argument and jangling, but with the mind of a little child; for the Son of God has said, ' I give thanks to Thee, 0 Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones.'21 And so it is with us now. The faith of the Holy Koman Church, — pure, incorrupt, incorruptible, primitive, divine, — from the lips of the Spirit of God, is indeed a faith transcendent, and demanding of every one that would believe it the docile submission and child-like trust of heart and will which is due to the presence and guidance of a Divine Teacher. If men believe what they profess to believe of the perpetuity, the presence, the teaching of the Spirit of God, can they do otherwise than submit themselves with docility to the utterance of a voice which is divine? All doctrines have been disputed, cast out, disfigured in controversy, railed upon by the world; for since Jesus withdrew Himself, and the shame which fell on Him had no longer a divine personal object in the world, never was there anything so railed at as that one universal faith of the Holy Catholic and Koman Church. It bears the 21 St. Matthew xi. 25.

shame of Jesus: ' You shall be hated by all men for My name's sake,'22 has been fulfilled in the faith which we believe. And why is it so? Because it speaks in its Master's name; because it perpetuates His voice; because every definition of the Council of Trent is an accent of the voice of Jesus. Therefore men gainsay it, as they gainsayed Him; but the words of the prophet stand true: ' My Spirit that is in thee, and My words that I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever.'

2. There follows also another truth, and it is an awful one, — a truth which springs from the last so inseparably and by so strong a necessity, that I dare not pass it by. If, indeed, God the Holy Ghost be in the midst of us, and if it be God the Holy Ghost Who speaks to us through the one Holy Catholic and Roman Church, then it imposes its doctrines on the consciences of men under pain of eternal death. It is under pain of eternal death to disbelieve that which God the Holy Ghost has revealed. To disbelieve what the Holy Ghost, through the Church of God, has taught, incurs the pain of eternal death for those who with their eyes open reject it. It is an awful 22 St. Matthew x. 22.

truth, and therefore the Apostle said, ' Thanks be to God, who always causeth us to triumph in Christ Jesus.. for we are unto God the good odour of Christ in them that are saved, and in them that perish.' God is justified, and His truth is glorified, and the two-edged sword of His justice accomplishes its work on those that believe and on those that believe not; * to some, indeed, the odour of death unto death, but to the others the odour of life unto life.'23

For the Church of God, speaking by the Spirit of God, imposes the duty of belief and of obedience in the same words which the Apostles spoke at Jerusalem: ' It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us.' And therefore all those who can know these truths are bound to know them. God will enter into judgment with no man for that which is impossible. He will exact an account of no one for that which he could not do. He will require at the last day a reckoning from no one of that which he never heard. But wheresoever the one faith of God is preached, wheresoever the divine voice has touched the ear, the ear is open and the heart hears it, and the will is conscious, and the judgment takes effect. And more than this: we are answerable not only for what we know, but for what we might know. Whensoever

23 2 Cor. ii. 14-16.

the light comes within the reach of our sight, or the voice within the reach of our ear, we are hound to follow it, to inquire and to learn; for we are answerahle, not only for what we can do, hy absolute power now, but for what we might do if we used all the means we have; and therefore, whensoever the Church of God comes into the midst of us, it lays all men under responsibility; and woe to that man who says, ' I will not read; I will not hear; I will not listen; I will not learn;' and woe to those teachers who shall say, ' Don't listen, don't read, don't hear; and therefore, don't learn.' When this divine voice comes, we must listen with our ears open, and with a flexible will and a docile heart; lest the divine voice should come into the midst of us, and we should be found with ears that cannot hear, and hearts that will not believe. If these words are awful, they are also consoling; for there is for the weak and for the ignorant, for the timid and for the doubtful, a sure hope of eternal life. There is a path and a way, which is called a holy way, and the simple and the unlearned shall not err therein. All they need is this: to follow with docility that divine voice. It is the way of truth, it is the way of grace, it is the way of the Precious Blood, it is the way of life eternal. All that is needed is a docile submission to the voice of the

Holy Ghost; and the voice of the Holy Ghost is to be heard here, as in all the world, from the lips of the Holy Catholic and Eoman Church.

This fair land of yours Nature has chosen as the mirror of her beauty. She has planted it in the northern seas, with its mountains fronting the western sun, and watered its valleys and plains with a thousand streams. The lights of heaven are poured upon its lakes and glens with an illumination and a glory, with an entanglement and a mingling of all the hues that can make earth beautiful. There is no land in all the world, which, for the softer splendours of mountain and fell, wood and stream, surpasses Scot-land. Beautiful in nature, but once still more beautiful in grace! Witness the mighty churches, of which one now serves for three; witness the roofless abbeys in the low glades and valleys of the north; witness the Lady - chapels, where the altars of Mary were lighted of old. The beauty of Jesus and of Mary, the light and presence of the Incarnation was here. The illumination of the Word and the outpouring of the Spirit were upon Scotland then. There was peace and there was charity, because there was truth, in those days; there was heroism and there was saintliness, because Scotland then was within the unity of the Church of God. The word of the prophet Isaias was accomplished in this land. But there came a time of rude change, when the union of the Spirit and the Word was broken; when those which God had joined together were divorced by the will of men; when the rebellious intellect of man rose against the divine voice of the Church of God, and rejected the guidance of the Spirit, because he would not bow to any teacher.

Then came another change; when men had rejected the divine voice by the struggling indocility of their will, the word departed from their lips. They clutched at it with jealousy, and they found in their hands the written word alone: Litera occidit, spiritus autem mvificat.^ The letter that killeth was left behind, the spirit that giveth life departed. The word was interpreted no more by the light of the Holy Ghost, no more by an infallible Guide, but by the interpretations of man and the light of the human intellect. Then came contradiction, struggle, and contention, and for three hundred years division and subdivision, the crumbling and dissolving of what once was the mystical body; so that there is now no land in all the world, save only England, which went abreast with Scotland in revolt, to be compared with Scotland for its religious disunion. And in the 2* 2 Cor. iii. 6.

train of these divisions came uncertainty, indifference, lukewarmness, and doubt, asking, * Who knows what is true? — whether is the truth on this side or that? Who can tell? Who is the judge?' And in the train of indifference comes infidelity, saying, ' God hath not said. Why believe this? I will not believe that.' The spirit of unbelief is rushing in through the breach as a flood, because the spirit and the word are divided, and the Voice and the Guide are gone: for the intellect of man and the will of man have assumed the sovereignty, and raised themselves up to be their own guide and light. Private judgment has taken the place of Jesus teaching in His Church. But God has not forsaken, He has not forgotten a land He once loved so much; for all through these three dreary centuries of disunion, hid in the valleys, driven up into the mountains, and wandering in poverty, the Church has still guided the remnant of the flock. There has been the Word Incarnate upon the altar, the living word in the mouth of the pastor, the holy Sacrifice in the hands of the priest, the unction of the Holy Ghost on the one holy Church, reduced to a handful, but still living on, Catholic and Koman in its divine prophetic perpetuity. Even here in Scotland, Vicars-Apostolic, the representatives of the Holy See, the special witnesses of the Vicar of Jesus

Christ, consecrated by the Word, and anointed by the Holy Ghost, through three centuries of desolation have ruled the Church of God. They have ordained and commissioned the priests of Jesus Christ, and have conferred on them the spirit of grace, and have put the word in their mouth. There has been the perpetuity of the one immutable faith and the one infallible voice, even in this land: and now, after three hundred years, when the order of all human events would require that a thing so feeble and weak should wax less and less, it is waxing stronger and stronger, it is growing mighty, it is multiplying on every side, enlarging its presence, putting on its majesty, coming forth in its beauty, and exhibiting its splendour, as it does this day> in a new sanctuary reared and set apart in honour of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God. The Church of God is accomplishing these things; and why? Because the prophecy of Isaias rests upon it. This day, as in Nazareth, it is fulfilled in your ears.

And there is another token now visible in this land. The saints of God, once so many and now so few, are returning. To number up the names of the saints of Scotland is rather a tax upon our ingenuity to find them than on the memory to recount them by name. The flood has gone over the earth, the record of their names and their sanctity is gone; but in this dearth and barrenness they are coming back once more. St. Ignatius, with his soldier spirit, always first to volunteer on the forlorn hope, always first to scale the walls of a city sevenfold strong, is here. Then comes St. Vincent, who has filled the whole world with the perfume of his name, which, like the name of Jesus, from whence its sweetness is borrowed, is as ointment poured forth. St. Vincent two centuries ago was here. In the din and conflict of Cromwell's days, when Scotland, bent under his rod of iron, lay crushed in three great battles — in the midst of that time came two fathers of St. Vincent, kindled with the charity of their great saint. They came into your western islands, and they left behind them a seed which has never died, a light which has never been extinguished. And now, through the generous hospitality of one who has an eye to discern Apostles in the garb of poverty, they are invited here once more with a munificence of faith and a largeness of charity which will write his name in the hearts of generations yet unborn.

St. Vincent is come to-day to Lanark, and has gathered you together here; and with you many are mingled who are not yet of you, but who will be. He has come once more with the majestic march of the holy Roman Church, with the same faith, the same seven sacraments, the same episcopal rule, the same pastoral staff, under which his sons went forth two hundred years ago. Once more in open day — in such a day as this — the holy Koman Church lifts up her tiara, and her infallible voice is heard. And therefore may be said to Scotland what Jesus said to Jerusalem: ' If thou also hadst known, and that in this thy day, the things that are for thy peace; but now they are hidden from thine eyes.'25 And as He said in the Apocalypse, ' Be mindful, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and do penance, and do the first works; or else I will come to thee, and will remove thy candlestick out of its place, unless thou shalt have done penance.'26

These might well be the voices of warning to us to-day; but they come to us also as the accents of love and invitation. If the mighty energy of the will of this great Scottish people, even here in the narrow circle of the lowlands — if the mighty energy of will which has been applied to the conquest and the government of the world, which has filled the Western and Eastern Indies with its sway, which has built up the mighty Babylon a few miles off, peopled by half a million of toiling souls, who toil with a unity

25 St. Luke xix. 42. 26 Apoc. iv. 5.

of power as if there was but one will to govern and direct them, wearing themselves out, spending and being spent from sunrise to sunset for this perishing life — if that will were only sanctified, and that intellect were only illuminated, if the unction of the Spirit of God, and the truth of the Word of God, could be once more wedded together in the spiritual nature and life of the Scottish people, what a race of soldiers, of heroes, and of saints of Jesus Christ should here arise! And who knows what may be hereafter? You and I shall soon pass away; but the work begun today is a work that will not pass away. It has the perpetuity of the Spirit and the Word; and when we are gone, it will multiply and accomplish itself. Generation after generation, God will make perfect His own. He will gather out His elect until the day shall come when He will be revealed with all His saints; and out of this place there will ascend to meet Him souls whom you know not; and bright crowns shall be won that day by those who here have toiled for them, who have prayed for them, who have given alms for them, who have offered at the altar so much as one aspiration, one desire, that the Word and the Spirit of God may come to-day into His sanctuary. The altar yonder was consecrated yesterday, on the Feast when we commemorate the dedication of the greatest Church of all the world — Omnium Ecclesiarum Mater et Magistra, as it is inscribed in front of the great Basilica of St. John Lateran, the Cathedral Church of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. To-day we celebrate the feast of a saint27 who, for his tender love of the Cross, took to himself the name of Andrew, dear to Scotland and to you. Yesterday and to-day will make but one yearly festival, uniting once more in holy wedlock Scotland and Eome, in the Spirit and the Word, in the unity and infallibility of that one only Church of God, which is the presence of Jesus Himself on earth.

27 St. Andrew Avellino.