Letter VI. To a Man of the World

W e cannot have the true intelligence of the Holy Scriptures outside the Church.

2nd July, 1619. •

Sir, — It is very true that the Sacred Scripture contains with much clearness the doctrine required for your salvation, and I never thought the contrary.

It is also true that it is a very good method of interpreting the Sacred Scripture to compare passages with one another, and to reduce the whole to the analogy of the faith; that also I have ever said. But all the same I cease not to believe quite certainly, and to say constantly, that in spite of this admirable and delightful clearness of the Scripture on things necessary for salvation, the human spirit does not always find the true sense of it; but can err, and in fact very often does err, in the intelligence of passages which are the most clear and the most necessary for the establishment of the faith.

Witness the Lutheran errors, and the Calvinist books, which, under the conduct of the fathers of the pretended Reform, remain in irreconcilable contradiction on the meaning of the words of institution of the Blessed Eucharist. While borh sides boast of having carefully and faithfully examined the sense of these works by comparing other passages of Holy Scripture, and adjusting the whole to the analogy of faith, they still remain opposed in their way of understanding words of such great importance. Scripture, then, is plain in its words, but the heart of man is dim-sighted, and, like a night-owl, cannot see this brightness.

The above-mentioned method is very good, but the human spirit knows not how to use it. It is the Spirit of God, sir, which gives the true sense of it to us, and gives it only to his Church, the column and support of the truth; the Church, by whose ministry this Divine Spirit keeps and maintains his truth, that is, the true sense of his word; the Church, which alone has the infallible assistance of the Spirit of Truth to find the truth clearly, surely, and infallibly in the Word of God. So that he who seeks the truth of this celestial word outside that Church which is the guardian of it, never finds it. And he who wants to know it otherwise than through the Church's ministry, instead of truth, will only embrace vanity, and instead of the certain clearness of the sacred word will follow the illusions of that false angel, who transforms himself into an angel of light.

Thus acted formerly all heretics, who have all professed to have the better understanding of the Scripture, and to wish to reform the Church; vainly seeking truth outside the bosom of the spouse. Whereas the heavenly Spouse confided it to her as to a faithful depositary and guardian, who would distribute it to the dear children of the nuptial bed, which is, and will be for ever, without stain.

This, then, is the substance of what I have to say, sir, and it is neither by little nor by much contrary to the doctrine of the holy Fathers, which M. de Mornay gives in the book which you pleased to send me yesterday evening. This I send back to-day, with thanks, and declaring that I shall continually desire to be able, by some happy opportunity, to testify, sir, that I am yours, &c.