Chapter IV. The Relation of the Holy Ghost to the Interpretation of Scripture

THE RELATION OF THE HOLT GHOST TO THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE.

In the last chapter we have endeavoured to ascertain, according to the tradition of the Catholic faith and theology, the relation of the Holy Spirit to the letter and to the substance of Holy Scripture. We may now go on to trace the relation of the same Divine Person to its interpretation.

At the close of the last chapter, it was affirmed that Christianity was neither derived from the Scriptures of the New Testament, nor is dependent upon them: that it was derived from, and that it still depends upon the order of divine facts introduced into the world by the Incarnation; among which facts, one is the perpetual presence of a Divine Teacher among men. In the present chapter, then, we will trace the relation of this Divine Teacher to the interpretation of Scripture. The faith teaches us that what the presence of the Incarnate Son in the years of His ministry was to the Scriptures of the Old Testament, that the presence of the Holy Grhost is, servata proportione, to the Scriptures of the New. Now the Jews were not more unconscious of the presence of a Divine Person among them than the multitude of men at this day.

We read in the fourth chapter of S. Luke's Grospel, that on a certain Sabbath day our Lord 6 went into the synagogue, according to His custom,' and that ' He stood up to read.' l The Sabbath rose upon Nazareth that day like any other, and the people of Israel went to their synagogue as at other times. Jesus was there, according to His custom; and He stood up to read as others were wont to do. The Book of Esaias the prophet was given to Him; and as He unrolled it, He found the place where it was written, ' The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Wherefore He hath anointed me to preach the Grospel to the poor.' c And when He had folded the book, He restored it to the minister and sat down.' Then He said: ' This day these words are fulfilled in your ears.' That day was a day of visitation. The Messiah was come, but they knew Him not. With the Scriptures in their hands, they did not recognise the Divine Person of whom the 1 S. Luke iv. 16-19.

Scriptures spoke. He was come fulfilling the prophecies; but they believed Him to be the carpenter, the son of Joseph. There was a Divine Teacher in the midst of them, but they thought His voice was human. He interpreted to them the sense, and confirmed the authenticity of the Books of Moses and of the Prophets with a Divine witness; but they rejected both His testimony and His interpretation. With the Books of the Law in their hands, they rejected the Lawgiver, and appealed from Him to it, from the living voice of a Divine Teacher to the letter of the Scriptures, interpreted by their own human commentaries. It is of this perversity S. Paul says, " The letter killeth, the Spirit quickeneth.' l S. Augustine says, c The Jew carries the volume, by which the Christian believes.' 2 Now was this a transient visitation, or is there still in the midst of us a Divine Person — the living Interpreter of the Holy Scripture— the Gruardian both of the letter and of the sense of Holy Writ?

This is a vital question — vital at all times — most vital now in England. Because hitherto England has preserved two things; not wholly, indeed, but with less of mutilation than other Protestant countries; namely, a belief that Christianity is a divine revela-

1 2 Cor. iii. 6. 2 S. Aug., Enarr. in Psalm. Ivi. torn. iv. p. 534.

lation, and that the Holy Scripture is an inspired Book. These have been hitherto the foundations of English Christianity. But they have been secretly and silently giving way. At the present day, many reject Christianity altogether; and many who profess to believe in Christianity reject the inspiration of a large part of the Scriptures. And these things are the forerunners of a flood which has already swept the belief in Christianity and in the Scriptures from the greater part of Lutheran Germany. If Luther should rise from the dead, he would not recognise his own work nor his own posterity. And in Ger-many there appears to be no signs of rising again from this spiritual death. In France some seventy years ago, a flood of infidelity burst upon the land, and carried all before it. The Church was swept away. An infidel empire reigned not only by force, but by infidel philosophy, and by infidel education. But France has risen again from the dead, and Christianity and the Church in France is restored to all its power and purity. Its hierarchy, priesthood, and religious are more vigorous and faithful than ever. And despite of indifference and infidelity in individuals, the French people, as a people, are Christian in faith and works. What has saved France but the Church of God — the supernatural witness, endowments, and power of the holy Catholic and Eoman Church? But what shall sa\e England from the unbelief which is impending as an inundation? The Eeformation has mined the barriers against scepticism and unbelief. Doubt has been generated, age after age, upon every doctrine of Christianity and every book of Scripture. It seems to hang in the atmosphere, and to find its way impalpably into all minds; not of the irreverent and irreligious only, but even of the higher and the better. And what wonder, when pastors and bishops of the Church of England are leaders in this secession from the Truth. Is there then no power of rising again for England? Is it like Germany, or like France? Is there any barrier to unbelief? any witness for divine faith present in this country to raise it again from the ruin into which the flood of unbelief is visibly bearing it away? I believe there is. Narrow and hardly visible as it now may seem, nevertheless as the legal Christianity of England dissolves and • passes away, the Catholic and Eoman Church spreads itself with a steady and irresistible expansion. It is indeed a wonderful reverse to human pretension and to human pride, to see at this hour the Catholic and Eoman Church in England standing out as the one and only consistent and inflexible witness and keeper of Holy Writ, the sole guardian of Scripture, both of its sense and of its letter, and therefore the only Scriptural Church, teaching the only Scriptural religion to the English people.

It seems hardly necessary to say that Christianity was not derived from Scripture, nor depends upon it; that the master error of the Eeformation was the fallacy, contrary both to fact and to faith, that Christianity was to be derived from the Bible, and that the dogma of faith is to be limited to the written records of Christianity; or in other words, that the Spirit is bound by the letter; and that in the place of a living and Divine Teacher, the Church has for its guide a written Book.

It is to this fallacy I would make answer by drawing out what is the relation of the Holy Spirit to the interpretation of the written Word of God.

I. First, then, it is evident that the whole revelation of Christianity was given by the Spirit of God, and preached also and believed among the nations of the world before the New Testament existed. The knowledge of God through the Incarnation, and the way of salvation through grace, was revealed partly by our Divine Lord, and fully by the Holy Ghost at His coming. The faith or science of God was infused into the apostles by a divine illumination. It was

N not built up by deduction from the Old Testament, but came from (rod manifest in the flesh, and from His Holy Spirit. It was in itself the New Testament, before a line of it was written. It was a Divine science, one, full, harmonious and complete from its central truths and precepts to its outer circumference. It was traced upon the intelligence of man by the light which flowed from the intelligence of God. The outlines of truth as it is in the Divine Mind, so far as (rod was pleased to reveal, that is, to unveil it, were impressed upon the human mind.

This truth was preached throughout the world by the apostolic mission. They were commanded to e preach the Grospel to every creature,' and (to make disciples of all nations.' And what Jesus commanded, the apostles did. They promulgated the whole of Christianity. They baptized men into the faith of Jesus Christ. But before they baptized any man he became a disciple: that is, he learned the faith. The Faith was delivered to him in the articles of the Baptismal Creed, as the law was delivered in the Ten Commandments. These two summaries contain the whole truth and law of God. And every baptized person, according to his capacity, received the explicit knowledge of all that is implicitly contained in them. But what was the source of this perfect science of (rod in Jesus Christ? It was no written Book, but the presence of a Divine Person illuminating both the teachers and the taught.

And this universal preaching of the apostles was written by the Spirit upon the intelligence and heart of the living Church, and sustained in it by His presence. The New Testament is a living Scripture, namely the Church itself, inhabited by the Spirit of God, the author and writer of all revealed Truth. He is the Digitus Paternce dexterce, 'the finger of the right hand of the Father,' by whom the whole revelation of the New Law is written upon the living tables of the heart. S. Irenasus, the disciple of Polycarp, the disciple of S. John, writing fifty years after the death of the last apostle, asks: (What if the apostles had not left us writings, would it not have been needful to follow the order of that tradition which they delivered to those to whom they committed the churches? to which many of the barbarous nations who believe in Christ assent, having salvation written without paper and ink, by the Spirit in their hearts, sedulously guarding the old tradition.' l

This was a hundred and fifty years after the Incarnation. During all this time, which is nearly four

1 S. Iren. adv. Hseres. lib. iii. cap. 4, p. 178. N 2 generations of men, on what had Christianity depended for its perpetuity but upon the same Divine fact which was its source, the presence of a Divine Person inhabiting the mystical body or Church of Jesus Christ, and sustaining the original revelation in its perfect integrity?

II. But, secondly, this revelation was also divinely recorded before the New Testament Scriptures were written.

It was written, as I have said, upon the mind of the pastors, or the Ecclesia docens, the Church teaching the world; and upon the mind of the flock or the Ecclesia discens, the Church learning throughout the world.

It was recorded and incorporated in the Seven Sacraments of Grace, which are, each one of them, Truths of revelation permanently embodied and proposed to faith. The sacrament of Baptism incorporates, so to say, the doctrines of original sin and of regeneration; the sacrament of Penance, the absolution of sin after Baptism, the cleansing of the Precious Blood, the power of contrition, the law of expiation; the sacrament of Confirmation, the interior grace and the seven gifts of the Holy Grhost; the sacrament of Order, the divine authority, unity, and power of the Hierarchy of the Church; the sacrament of Matrimony, the unity and indissolubility of Christian marriage, the root of the Christian world; and so on. Each one embodies, teaches, and requires faith in a constellation of Christian truths; and the Seven Sacraments of the Church are a Becord, or Scripture of (rod, anterior to the written Gospels of the Evangelists. Much more, the Divine worship of the universal Church, of which one of these seven Sacraments is the centre, namely the sacrifice and sacrament of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. The incarnation, redemption, and consubstantial union of the Mystical Body with its Head, the communion of saints and of souls departed, are therein incorporated and manifested. All truths congregate around the altar, as all truths radiate from Jesus Christ. The whole revelation of Christianity is reflected in it.

But the Church, its sacraments, and its worship were spread throughout the world before as yet the books of the New Testament were written.

It was not till the faith had been everywhere preached, believed, defined in creeds, recorded in the mind of the universal Church, embodied in sacraments, and manifested in its perpetual worship, that the New Testament was formed. By the inspiration and impulse of the same Divine Teacher who had already revealed the whole Truth to the apostles, it was for the most part put in writing. I say for the most part,- because the written Scripture is not coextensive with the Eevelation of Pentecost, nor with the preaching of the apostles. The written Scripture presupposes and recognises in those to whom it is addressed the knowledge of the whole Truth. It is to the Church, guided by the Spirit of (rod, what the writings and letters of a man are to his personal identity. They would recognise all, but record only a part; imply many things, and express only such things as fall within their scope.

The most elementary knowledge of Christian history is enough to prove this. The first Gospel, that of S. Matthew, was not written till five years after the ascension, and then in Hebrew only. In Greek it did not exist for five or six years later; that is, for ten years at least, none of the four Gospels, as we possess them, was written. The second Gospel, that of S. Mark, was written about the same time. The third, twenty-four years after. For the first twenty years there were only two Gospels, and those in Greek. The fourth Gospel, that of S. John, was not written till about sixty years after the ascension. Where then, till the end of the first century, or for* two generations of men, were the four Gospels, which people seem to imagine were distributed by the twelve Apostles to their converts on the day of Pentecost?

The earliest of the Epistles was written about fifteen years after our Lord's ascension — the latest more than thirty years after that event.1 But all these books are limited in their scope. Even the four Gospels treat only of the incarnation and earthly life of Jesus. -The Book of Acts is but a fragment of the

1 The following are the dates of the Books of the New Testament, according to the ordinary Catholic and Protestant authorities. Either will equally establish the argument of the text, as they differ but very slightly.

A. D,

A. D.

S. Matthew

S. Mark.

S. Luke.

S. John.

The Acts.

1 Corinthians.

2 Corinthians.

Galatians

Ephesians

Philippians

Colossians

1 Thessalonians

2 Thessalonians

1 Timothy

2 Timothy

Titus

Philemon

Hebrews.

history of S. Peter and S. Paul. The Epistles are local and occasional, and even private and personal in their nature. And all these books for generations were known only by those parts of the Church to which they were dedicated and entrusted. They were not collected into a volume, that is the New Testament, as men call it, did not exist until a hundred years at least after the ascension. During all this century, martyrs, confessors, saints and penitents multiplied in all the world. The apostolic mission had become a universal tradition. The Church on earth rested on the sunrise and the sunset, upon Spain, and upon India. The Heavenly Court had already received the saints of three generations of men. But during all this time what was the source of their Christianity, and what its support? Certainly no book, not even the New Testament Scripture, but the New Testament 'in spirit and in truth,' the revelation of the day of Pentecost, given and sustained by the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church, the divine and perpetual Teacher of the world. This is the original, of which the written Scripture is but a partial and subsequent transcript, recognising, indeed, the whole circle of divine truths and the whole order of divine facts in the faith and Church of God upon earth, but reciting only portions, and pointing to the living and Divine Teacher as the only guide into all truth.

III. From this it follows further, that this science of (rod, incorporated in the Church, is the true key to the interpretation of Scripture. It was in possession throughout the world; it was perfect everywhere before the books of the New Testament were written. It bore witness to the whole revelation of the day of Pentecost; it fixed the meaning of the Scriptures by the evidence of divine facts.

The Socinians and Unitarians tell us now, as the Arians and Sabellians told us of old, that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not to be read in the New Testament; but it was preached and believed throughout the world before the New Testament was written.

Presbyterians, Independents, and other Protestants tell us now as the Acephali and others told us of old, that a hierarchy, an episcopate, and a priesthood are not to be found in the New Testament; but there was a hierarchy ruling over the pastors of the Church, an episcopate feeding the flock, and a priesthood offering the holy sacrifice at the altar among all nations of the world before the New Testament existed.

There are Puritans of every shade and Anglicans of many opinions, who tell us that the Church is an invisible body seen only by faith and by (rod; that its unity is only moral, not numerical; that it is divisible into many parts, or branches, and that the New Testament does not exhibit the Church as visible to the eye, numerically one, and indivisible in its unity. But before the New Testament was, the Church had expanded from east to west, visible by its organization, absolute and exclusive in its unity, which the divisions and apostasies of men could neither divide nor multiply.

We are told that there are only two sacraments of the new law, and that they do, or do not confer grace, according as the multiplicity of Protestant errors is pleased to opine; that there is no sacrifice under the Gospel, no real and personal presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. But the Christians throughout the world had received and professed their faith in the seven sacraments of grace, and the perpetual sacrifice and universal presence of the Word made flesh in the Holy Eucharist had already filled the Church with the consciousness of a Divine manifestation before as yet the canon of the New Testament was completed.

Finally, we are told that in the New Testament there is to be read no successor of S. Peter, no vicar of Jesus Christ. But before the New Testament was collected and diffused, all the world recognised one pastor as chief over all, reigning in the place of Peter from his See in Eome.

The faith and the Church then were the key of interpretation. They who read the New Testament, read it in the light of the day of Pentecost and within the circle of the universal Church in which they beheld the order of divine truths or facts, which the New Testament Scriptures recognise and presuppose. This was both the actual and the scientific key to their true interpretation*.

IV. From this it is further evident that the Church is the guardian both of the faith and of the Scriptures.

It received both from its divine Head. And it alone received the custody of the divine revelation and of its inspired books. It received from the Church of old, the books of the old law confirmed by the divine witness of Jesus himself; from the synagogue, the later books; and from the evangelists and apostles, their inspired writings, of which it knew the authenticity and genuineness both by extrinsic and intrinsic evidence.

And as the Church alone received both the faith and the Scriptures, it alone witnesses to both, and that with a twofold evidence; first with a human and historical testimony, resting upon its own personal knowledge of the authenticity of those books, an evidence abundant to attest their veracity; and secondly with a divine and supernatural testimony, resting upon its own spiritual consciousness of the truth contained in those books. The witness therefore of the Church is twofold, natural and supernatural, human and divine: sufficient in the lower, and infallible in the higher sphere of its testimony.1

Take it even on the lowest ground. In human jurisprudence the most certain rules of interpretation are to be drawn from the judgments of the learned, the precedents of tribunals and cotemporaneous exposition. The two first are sufficient in most cases, the last is held to be certain as an exponent of the meaning of a law and of the mind of the lawgiver. But in the Church we have all this and more. We have both the judgments of doctors and the decrees of councils; and we have more than this, the cotem-

1 It is strange to read such words as the following: — ' The value of internal evidence — always, perhaps, the foundation of Christian belief everywhere — drawn out into philosophy by Anselm, has now been recognised in theory as well as in practice, in theology as well as in philosophy.' — Theology of the Nineteenth Century. Fraser's Magazine, No. CCCCXXII. p. 259. What has generated the internal evidence of Holy Scripture in the mind of the Christian world, but this twofold witness of the Church? and of what avail is the alleged internal evidence apart from the Church, still less opposed to it? The Essays and Reviews are answer enough.

poraneous exposition of the books of the New Testament by the divine facts which existed before the Scriptures, and are the key to their sense — the Faith, the Church, and the Sacraments spread throughout the world.

The tradition of the Church, then, contains in it all the principles of certainty which govern the science of human jurisprudence. But it contains more. The tradition of the Church is not human only, but also divine. It has an element above nature, the presence of a divine illumination, so that not only the testimony but the discernment of the Church is supernatural. It delivers to us both the original revelation and the Scripture with an infallible certainty, and we receive both from the Church by an act of divine faith.

V. And this brings us to a last truth, that the Church is not merely the interpretation but the interpreter, and is divinely guided in applying this key to the Holy Scriptures. Before the New Testament was written, it was the living witness for the truth, the organ of the Divine and perpetual voice, which in all nations declared the original revelation. Its authority as a teacher rests upon its commission and its infallibility, that is upon the command of its Divine head, and the assistance of the Holy Grhost.

The theory that the Church can err could only arise in minds which have lost the faith of what the Church is. Can it be believed that the mystical body of Christ which is indissolubly united to its Divine Head in heaven, should go about on earth teaching falsehoods in His name? Is it credible that the Church, which is the dwelling-place of the Spirit of Truth, should wander from the revelation which radiates from His presence as light from the sun? The Church in the beginning knew the whole revelation of God, and knows it in every age with a perception which is never obscured, and a consciousness which is never suspended. The illumination which pervades its intelligence, unites with the inspiration of the New Testament as two lights pass into one.

The Church diffused throughout the world, both pastors and people are filled by a consciousness of this faith. And in the light of this consciousness the whole sense of Scripture, I do not say in all its contents, but in all that bears upon the faith and law of God, is instinctively clear to it. The indissoluble union between the Holy Ghost and the mystical body secures to it in all ages its passive infallibility in believing. The Church congregated in council has a special assistance to discern and to declare the original revelation, and therefore the sense of Scripture, so far as tfyat revelation is contained in it or reflected by it. The Episcopate has the grace or unction of truth, and when assembled in council has a special assistance and direction in its judgments. General councils are infallible because the Church is so. They are the organs of its discernment and its decrees.

And what is true of the Church as a whole, and of councils as its organs, is true also of its head. The endowments of the body are the prerogatives of its head, who is the centre of the Divine tradition, and the focus of its supernatural illumination. The head of the Church has also, as we have already seen, a twofold relation, the one to the whole body upon earth, the other to its Divine Head in Heaven, which invests him with an eminent grace and assistance of the Holy Spirit, whose organ he is to all the Church and to all the world. The accumulation of all the evidence, human and divine, and of all the lights, natural and supernatural, by which the revelation of G-od is known or declared, and the books of Holy Scripture, both in their letter and their sense, are guarded and authenticated, resides by a special endowment in the visible head of the Church on earth.

Do I seem to be making a large claim in behalf of the Vicar of Jesus Christ? Does not every one who rejects the living voice of the Church virtually make the same claim for his sect and for himself? He disclaims infallibility, but he is confident that he is in the right: that the Catholic interpretations of the Scripture are erroneous, and his are certain. Churches that are fallible, it seems, never err, at least in their own esteem; and all the multiplication of their perpetual contradictions fail to bring them to a sense of their aberrations. It is strange on what suicidal arguments men will rest themselves. At one time they say that Scripture is so clear and self-evident in its teaching that no humble mind can fail to see its true meaning. If so, why do they contradict each other and themselves at different times? And if so clear, is it not equally so to the Christians of all races and ages who in it have unanimously read the Catholic and Eoman faith?

Again, it is said that the reason is enough to discern the true meaning of the Bible. Why, again, are they who hold this principle in irreconcilable conflict?

And if the individual reason is a sufficient criterion of the sense of Scripture, is not the reason of S. Thomas, or of Suarez, or of Bellarmine to be trusted, much more the collective reason of the Church of all ages and of all people upon earth?

Once more, it is said that there is a special promise that all who read the Scripture with prayer, should be led into all truth. Again, the truth is but one; why do they who go by this rule interminably contradict each other? But did not S. Augustine, and S. Athanasius, S. Chrysostorn, and S. Cyril of Alex-andria read Holy Scripture with prayer to understand it? Have not the saints in all ages? Have they not received the supernatural guidance and instruction promised, as we are told, to all? Do they not all agree in every jot and tittle of the doctrines declared by them as the sense of Holy Scripture? And is not the unanimous consent of the saints the sense and voice of the Spirit of God? Certainly if there be a promise of guidance into the sense of Scripture made to individuals, the same is enjoyed by the saints one by one, much more by them altogether, still more by the whole Church of (rod, whose collective illumination is a perpetual emanation from the presence of the Spirit of Truth.

Such then is the assertion with which I set out. There is among us now, as there was in the beginning, a Divine Person, the author and teacher of o the whole revelation of Christianity, the guardian of the Sacred Books, and the interpreter of their sense: and the Church in all ages, one and undivided, is the perpetual organ of His voice.

From all that has been said it follows that the Scriptures separated from the Church perish. The appeal from the living voice of the Church to the letter of Scripture destroyed the Divine custody of the letter and of the sense of the Sacred Books. It has needed centuries to unfold the whole reach of this false principle, but it has most surely borne its fruits. The canker fastened upon the root, and has been spreading in secret through the sap to the trunk, and throughout the spread of the branches even to the utmost spray.

First; the interpretation of Holy Scripture was lost in the contradictions and confusions of human teachers. And when the right sense is lost, the Scripture is lost. Just as a man's will is his will only in the sense intended by him, and in no other: and his will ceases to be his will when it is interpreted against or beside his intention. S. Jerome says, (The Grospel consists not in Scriptures, but in the sense; not on the surface, but in the marrow; not in the foliage of words, but in the root of truth.' Again he says, e The Divine Scriptures when misinteipreted by men become human.' l So that, after all, the most scriptural are often the most unscriptural. Vincent of Lerins says that heretics have always been conspicuous for an obtrusive abundance of quotation.2 S. Augustine calls the texts which human teachers misinterpret, (the shower of snares,' pluvia laqueorumf of which the Psalmist speaks.

But when the interpretation goes, faith in the inspiration of Scripture speedily follows. The course of Biblical criticism, both in Germany and in England, shows that men do not long believe in the divine inspiration of books which are rendered incredible by misinterpretation.

The school which is becoming dominant in the Anglican Church and in the Universities, by reason of its scholarship and attractiveness, has already rejected the inspiration of large parts of Holy Scripture: and reduced the nature of inspiration to limits far short of the truth.

To deny the inspiration of certain books, or parts of such books, is to deny such documents to be Scripture: that is, to deny the genuineness, authenticity and identity of these books. So ' their speech

1 S. Hier. Com. in Gal. cap. i. torn. iv. p. 230.

2 Vine. Lirin. Common, cap. xxv.

3 S. Aug. Enarrat. in Ps. x. sec. 10, torn. iv. p. 64.

spreadeth like a canker.' 1 It is come then to this, that the system which founded itself upon the claim to be essentially and above all Scriptural, is ending in denying the inspiration and authenticity of Holy Scripture.

The guardianship of the Church being forfeited by the act of separation from its unity; even the fragmentary Christianity which the separated bodies carried away with them has dissolved, and the Sacred Books have lost the divine evidence of their inspiration and veracity.

What has hitherto been said will both explain and refute two accusations commonly brought against the Catholic Church, the one that it supersedes to so great an extent the use of Scripture in the devotions of its people; the other, that it enunciates its doctrines in an arbitrary and dogmatic way, regardless of the facts of Christian antiquity and history.

Now, as to the former. In one sense it is simply unmeaning and untrue to say that the Church supersedes the use of Holy Scripture in the devotions of its people. Of what is the Missal, the Breviary, the Kitual, and all the public services composed but of the very text of Holy Scripture? Every doctrine of the faith, every sacrament, every festival, is ex-

1 2 Tim. ii. 17.

hibited in the very words of the inspired books. Every doctrine and sacrament becomes the centre round about which the prophecies, types, and fulfilments recorded in Holy Scripture are gathered. They are clothed in a tissue of the inspired words, chosen out and interwoven together with a supernatural discernment and combination. They who by the grace of God have come from the wilderness into the true fold, can perhaps alone fully appreciate the change from the level and dim surface of the Sacred Text as read out of the Church, to the luminous distinctness, the splendour, and the beauty of the very same words when they are proclaimed by the voice of the Church in the acts of its public worship. From every page of Scripture words hitherto passed over seem to rise up as prophets, seers, and evangelists, and to speak with an articulate and living voice of the presence and power of the kingdom of (rod. It is as if David, and Esaias, the Beloved Disciple, and the Apostle of the Gentiles were speaking to us and worship-ping with us. But the objection is perhaps chiefly intended in respect to the private devotions of the people, to whom books of devotion written by uninspired men, rather than the Old or New Testament, are generally given. Now, there is at first sight a semblance of truth in the objection. It is perfectly true that manuals of devotion are distributed rather than Bibles, and for many sufficient aod, we should have thought, self-evident reasons.

From what has been already said, it is manifest that the revelation of Divine truth and will was anterior to all Scriptures and independent of them: that it was full, complete, and harmonious in itself: that it was perfect in its unity, order, and relation of truth with truth. But it is equally manifest that the Scripture afterwards written, though it recognises, presupposes and refers back to this revelation, does not contain it as a whole, and what it does contain is to be found, not in order and completeness, but detached and scattered, so to speak, here and there through the Sacred Text, which treats also of local, personal, and transitory events. It is perfectly true, therefore, that the Church puts into the hands of its people books of devotion which represent the whole order and completeness of revelation, and not the partial and unordered aspect of Scripture. Those books contain the Baptismal Creed, which enunciates in compendium the whole dogma of faith; the Divine Law of the Ten Commandments, as perfected by the Grospel, not the extinct Sabbatical injunctions of the Jews; the mysteries of the Holy Trinity, of the Incarnation and Passion; of the Holy Sacraments, their divine intention and supernatural grace, with the practices and counsels of penance and piety, whereby to prepare for their reception, and the like. The Church teaches its people now to worship and adore the Divine Presence in the midst of us, as it did before the Scriptures were written: as it did, too, when the millions of Christendom had no Scriptures in their hands, because the modern invention of printed books was not as yet known, when, too, they could not have read those books even if they had possessed them: which was always the state of the multitude, and probably always will be, to the end of the world. God has prepared for the poor and the unlearned a rule of faith, and a practice of devotion, full, unerring, and compassionately fitted to their needs, anterior in time to all Scriptures, and essentially independent of them. But as the objection is not confined to the poor, so neither must the answer be. And perhaps there can hardly be found a more pointed and exact illustration of the argument of this chapter.

It is certain, then, that the practice of Catholics is not so much to make use of the text of Scripture in their devotions as of devotional books. But of what are those books composed? Take, for example, the whole class of books used for meditation or mental prayer. They are from first to last the text of Holy Scripture expounded and applied. Such books are almost innumerable in the Catholic Church. The spiritual exercises of S. Ignatius, and all the expositions and commentaries upon them, and all the countless volumes of meditations for every day in the year which have sprung out of them, what are all these but Holy Scripture brought home to the people in the minutest and most practical way? Out of the Catholic Church such works hardly exist. English Protestants have certain Commentaries on Holy Scripture; but these do not supply that which the Catholic Church multiplies and puts into the hands of its people with such abundance, that no thoughtful Catholic is without a book of devout meditation upon Holy Scripture.

I do not here stop to answer the strange and extravagant pretensions of using Holy Scripture e without note or comment.' It is enough to answer, God has given a note and comment on Holy Scripture which no man can exclude if he would. No man can disregard without sin, the Church, the Faith, the Holy Sacraments, and finally the Living Voice of His Spirit speaking through the Church in every age, as in the age before the Scriptures were written.

But, finally, there is one more practical and complete answer to this objection. Catholics readily admit that they do not go to the text of Scripture for their devotion, as others do who are out of the unity of the Church. The reason cannot be better given than in the words which history ascribes to one of our English kings. It is said that Henry III. of England was asked by S. Louis of France why he went so often to mass, and so seldom to sermon; he answered: ' Because I had rather speak face to face with my friend, than hear about him.' It is the consciousness of the presence of Jesus, God and man in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar which draws all eyes and all hearts round about Him to the point where He is personally present. S. Augustine says that the Scriptures are ' the Epistles of the King ' sent to us.1 But when the King is with us we lay up His Epistles, and speak with him: as friends read the letters of an absent friend, but turn to him when he is among them. The perpetual, daily, hourly worship and communion with our Divine Master, which is equally intelligible, personal, and all-sufficing to the rich and to the poor, to the learned and to the little child, and indeed more realised and known by the hearts of the poor and of children than by any others — this it is which renders the text 1 S. Aug. in Psalmos, torn. iv. 1159.

of Holy Scripture, loved and honoured as it is, less necessary to the disciples of the Church of Jesus Christ.

The other objection I shall touch but briefly. It is often said that Catholics are arbitrary and positive even to provocation in perpetually affirming the indivisible unity and infallibility of the Church, the primacy of the Holy See, and the like, without regard to the difficulties of history, the facts of antiquity, and the divisions of Christendom. It is implied by this that these truths are not borne out by history and fact: that they are even irreconcilable with it: that they are no more than theories, pious opinions, assumptions, and therefore visionary and false.

We very frankly accept the issue. No Catholic would first take what our objectors call history, fact, antiquity and the like, and from them deduce his faith; and for this reason, the faith was revealed and taught before history, fact or antiquity existed. These things are but the basis of his faith, nor is the examination of them his method of theological proof. The Church, which teaches him now by its perpetual living voice, taught the same faith before as yet the Church had a history or an antiquity. The rule and basis of faith to those who lived before either the history or antiquity of which we hear so much existed, is the rule and basis of our faith now.

But perhaps it may be asked: (If you reject history and antiquity, how can you know what was revealed before, as you say, history and antiquity existed? ' I answer: The enunciation of the faith by the living Church of this hour, is the maximum of evidence, both natural and supernatural, as to the fact and the contents of the original revelation. I know what are revealed there not by retrospect, but by listening.1

Neither is this the Catholic method of theological proof. Let us try it by a parallel. Would those who so argue, try the doctrine of the Holy Trinity by the same method? Would they consider it arbitrary and unreasoning to affirm that God is one in nature and three in person, until we shall have examined the history and facts of antiquity — that is, until we shall have heard and appreciated the Sabellian, Arian, Semiarian, and Macedonian heresies? Or take

1 No better sample of unconscious Rationalism can be given, though I quote it with regret, than the following words: ' To discern the sacred past by the telescopic power of genius, and by the microscopic power of scholarship, is one of the chief ends for which universities and cathedrals are endowed, and for which theology exists.' — Theology of the Nineteenth Century. Fraser's Magazine, No. CCCCXXIL p. 256.

the doctrine of the Incarnation. Are we to take the Monophysite, Monothelite, and Apollinarian heresies, and modify a doctrine of the Incarnation in conformity to these facts? Was not the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and of the Incarnation revealed, preached, and believed throughout the world before there were Sabellians or Nestorians to deprave these truths? Was not the unity and infallibility of the Church and the primacy of the Holy See instituted and believed throughout the world before Montanists, or Acephali, or Donatists, or Greeks arose to gainsay these facts? In truth, and at the root, is not this inverted and perverse method a secret denial of the perpetual office of the Holy Ghost? The first and final question to be asked of these controversialists is: Do you or do you not believe that there is a Divine Person teaching now, as in the beginning, with a divine, and therefore infallible voice; and that the Church of this hour is the organ through which He speaks to the world? If so, the history, and antiquity, and facts, as they are called, of the past vanish before the presence of an order of facts which are divine — namely, the unity, perpetuity, infallibility of the Church of God: the body and visible witness of the Incarnate Word, the dwelling and organ of the Holy Ghost now as in the beginning: the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever: its own antiquity and its own history.

Let no one suppose that Catholic theologians, in refusing to follow the inverted and rationalistic method of extracting dogmas from the facts of history, for a moment either abandon the facts of history as insoluble, or conceive that they are opposed to the doctrines of faith. The Fathers were the children and the disciples of the Church. They learned their faith from it, and they expressed it partly in the words the Church had taught them, partly when, as yet, the Church had not fixed its terminology in language of their own. In the former, the Church recognises its own voice; in the latter, it knows their intention even when their language is less perfect. And when they err, the Church both discerns and corrects it: for the Church was their guide and teacher, not they hers. If any one desire to see both proof and illustration of what is here said, let him examine the treatises of Petavius on the Patristic language relating to the Holy Trinity; or, to refer to a more accessible work, let him turn to the language of the Fathers on the Immensity of the Son in a well-known work on the Development of Christian Doctrine. The havoc made not only with the writings of the Fathers, but with the doctrines of faith, by those who profess to interpret them, apart from the lineal tradition of the Church, is evidence enough of the falseness of this method.1 The only Father in whom, it is said, the Church has noted no error, is S. Gregory of Nazianzum. The Church can freely criticise the works of its own disciples: for while they may err, it cannot. And the imperfect conceptions and imperfect definitions of individual fathers of an early age are rectified by the mature conceptions and authoritative definitions of the Church in a later. The maturity of theology is not antiquity, but its later days; and language which was blameless in earlier and simpler times, may become heterodox in after ages: for example, the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father through the Son, the Immaculate Nativity of the Mother of God, and the like. Again, language which once was heterodox may become the test of

1 As a reductio ad impossibile, and I may say, ad absurdum, the following words suffice: 'We must get rid of our preconceived theories of what the Bible ought to be, in order to make out what it really is. The immense layers of Puritanic, scholastic, papal, and patristic systems, which intervene between us and the Apostolic or Prophetic Ages — the elevation of the point of view on which those ages stand above our own — aggravate the intensity of the effort to the natural sluggishness of the human heart and intellect.' — Theology of the Nineteenth Century. Fraser's Magazine, p. 255. It would be still harder to reconcile the ' immense layers ' of this counsel with the simplicity of the Divine action, whereby in all ages, pauperibus evangelizatur, ' to the poor the Gospel is preached.' truth, as the Homoousion, which was condemned by the Council of Antioch in the Sabellian sense, and in half a century was inserted in the Creed by the Council of Nice. No critic except the living and lineal judge and discerner of truth, the only Church of God, can solve these inequalities and anomalies in the history of doctrine. To the Church the facts of antiquity are transparent in the light of its perpetual consciousness of the original revelation.

Lastly, it is evident that in the Church alone the Scriptures retain their whole and perfect meaning. We hear to weariness of 6 the Bible and the Bible alone; ' but how is it that men forget to add, and ' the right sense of the Bible? ' For what can add to, or take from, or mutilate the Bible more profoundly than to misinterpret its meaning? Is it Scriptural to say that f This is my body ' does not signify that it is His body; or e Whosoever sins ye forgive ' does not convey the power of absolution; or ' Thou art Peter, and upon this rock ' does not mean that (Peter is the rock; ' or ' They shall anoint him with oil ' does not intend the use of oil? Surely the Scriptural Church is that which takes these words in this sense of the divine facts and sacraments, which were believed and venerated in the world before the Scripture was written.

Nay, more, the Church so honours the written Word of Gk>d, that it acts upon its lightest word. It is a strange thing to hear men say that such and such doctrines are incredible because so little is said of them in Holy Scripture. Is truth measured by quantity? How many divine words are needed to overcome the unbelief of men? How often must God speak before we obey Him? How many times must He repeat His revelations before we will submit to His divine voice? Does not every spark contain the whole nature of fire? Does not every divine word contain the veracity of God? The Church of God recognises His voice in every utterance, and honours the divine will revealed in the fewest syllables. The words ' He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,' has filled the world with disciples. ' Whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it,' has multiplied the army of martyrs. ' Whosoever shall confess me before men,' has made the weakest dare the power of the world. * If thou wilt be perfect, sell all that thou hast,' has created the state of voluntary poverty. The twenty-fifth chapter of S. Matthew has filled the Church with the orders of active charity. ' Mary hath chosen the better part,' has created and sustained the life of contemplative perfection. These single words, once spoken, are enough for the disciples of the Church, which is the dwelling of the Holy Spirit of Truth, the Author of the Sacred Books. It is this profound faith in their sacredness which made S. Paulinus lay them up in a tabernacle by the side of the Tabernacle of the Blessed Sacrament; and S. Edmund kiss the page of the Bible both before and after reading it; and S. Charles read it kneeling, with bare head and knees. So the Church cherishes its least jot or tittle, and guards it as a deposit dearer than life itself. And now it is every day becoming manifest that in the flood of unbelief pouring at this time upon England, the sole barrier to the inundation, the sole guardian and keeper of Holy Writ in all the integrity of its text and meaning, the sole divine witness of its inspiration, the sole, immutable, and unerring interpreter of its meaning is the Catholic and Koman Church.