New Publications.
Oriental and Linguistic Studies. Second Series. By W. D. Whitney, Professor of Sanscrit and Comparative Philology in Yale College. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1874.
Yale College well deserves the name of university in common with its great rival, Harvard. The advance it has made within the last twenty-five years is something really remarkable, and, to the great honor of its governing body, this advance has kept pace in linguistic studies with the improvement in the departments of mathematics and physics. One of the functions of a university is the production of really learned and solid books for the instruction of readers generally, as well as students in particular branches. The volume before us is a specimen of this class. Whatever we may think of some of Prof. Whitney's theories and opinions, we must acknowledge the evidence of study, labor, and great care to present the results of learning and thought on important and interesting subjects, which his works exhibit.
The contents of the present volume are somewhat varied and miscellaneous. One of the topics treated of, which deserves special attention, is the spelling and pronunciation of the English language. The variations of spelling are not so numerous and important as are those of pronunciation, but in this latter respect our language is certainly in a state which is most unsatisfactory and vexatious, and becoming every day worse. We are not an advocate of any revolutionary project in regard to phonetic spelling, but we do most earnestly desire a fixed and uniform standard, and still more a rule of uniformity in pronunciation. Mr. Whitney's researches into this subject are extremely curious, valuable, and often amusing, and he shows a very peculiar and ingenious facility of describing and expressing the various oddities and extravagances of individual or provincial usage. The question at once suggests itself whether there are any practicable means of fixing a standard of spelling and pronunciation. If it were question of a language spoken by one nation only, we can see very easily that an academy might be established which should settle all these matters by authority. An Englishman might assert the right of England to determine all usages in respect to the English language, and the corresponding obligation of all English-speaking peoples to conform to an authoritative standard furnished by an academy in England. Americans might not be satisfied with this. The further question arises, therefore, whether it be possible that English and American scholars should do something concurrently in this direction.
Mr. Whitney has given in some other papers, with a condensed but clear exposition, historical and philosophical views of India and China which will probably have more interest to the great body of readers than any other portions of his volume. In respect to one very important aspect of these topics, the missionary aspect, he shows impartiality and manifest effort to conform his statements and judgments to historical facts and a real rather than a fanciful standard. There is no attempt to claim for Protestant missions greater success than they have had, and a very fair tribute of praise is given to the celebrated Catholic missionaries who have labored in that arduous field. Yet, like other Protestants, Mr. Whitney shows himself not well informed about the practical results at which Catholic missionaries aim, and which, in so far as that is possible, they accomplish, in making their converts solidly pious and virtuous Christians.
Among the other topics treated of in this volume, the most important are Müller's Chips from a German Workshop, Cox's Aryan Mythology, and the “Lunar Zodiac of India, Arabia, and China.” We have not examined these and previous essays of the learned author, in which the formation of languages and mythologies is treated of, with sufficient attention to be enabled to understand clearly his fundamental theory of the origin and history [pg 574] of religion. We therefore abstain from any attempt at a critical judgment; and, in regard to Mr. Whitney's own special department of Sanscrit, very few critics can safely venture on that ground. Thorough and solid studies in these recondite branches of knowledge must lead to results advantageous to religion as well as to merely human science. We rejoice, therefore, in the noble and in many respects successful efforts of Mr. Whitney and his associates to promote the cause of high education in this country. We trust that their example may be emulated by those who have the principal charge of the higher education of our Catholic youth. The English bishops have already inaugurated the University College of Kensington with a faculty worthy of Oxford or Cambridge. When will the first steps be taken for a similar institution among ourselves?
The King's Highway; or, The Catholic Church the Way of Salvation, as Revealed in the Holy Scriptures.By the Rev. Augustine F. Hewit, of the Congregation of S. Paul. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1874.
This work of Rev. Father Hewit supplies a want we have often felt in instructing converts to the church. There are many sincere persons looking for light, and dissatisfied with the religious sect in which they were born, who have no idea of the church, nor the office it holds in the plan of redemption. The denomination to which they belong has never been of any use to them, and has, in fact, disclaimed all power to guide or help them. It requires often some time to overcome their prejudice against any kind of instrumentality between their souls and God. They believe in the Sacred Scriptures, which they have never deeply studied, but which they hold to be the oracles of divine truth. In their opposition to the Catholic faith they have been fighting against the only thing which can fill up the desire of their hearts, and bring into blessed harmony all they know of God and all they seek from his hands. To such this book will be as a messenger from heaven. It will remove their doubts, and from the inspired writings will prove to them the error of Protestant theories, and show how Christ our Redeemer is only to be found in his church, “which is his body,” which “he filleth all in all.” Written in the clear, graceful, and forcible style which distinguishes all the works of the author, it brings forth an argument which no honest mind can resist. It points out “the King's highway,” so plainly that “the wayfaring man, though a fool, cannot fail to find it.” The first chapters are devoted to a refutation of the false theories of Calvinism and Lutheranism. By the plain language of the Bible they are shown to be opposed to the divine Word, contradictory of each other, and hostile to the very nature and attributes of God. The true doctrine of redemption is then set forth from the Scriptures, with the office of faith and the prerequisites of justification. The whole system of salvation, as the mercy of Jesus Christ has revealed it, arises in its beauty and fulness before the eyes of the sincere, and the Catholic Church opens its door to the weary and heavy-laden, that they may enter in to praise God and find rest to their souls. We have nowhere seen a more clear and effective demonstration of our divine religion from the Scriptures. We have only to pray that it may have a large circulation among the honest inquirers after truth in this day of darkness and infidelity. Protestants of the old class profess a great reverence for the Bible, which is to them a kind of rule of faith. The diligent reading of this work will convince them that they cannot follow the Scriptures and remain where they are; that Catholics alone can understand and obey the written Word of God. Neither can they abide in the creed of their fathers amid the errors and disorganizing influences of this day. They must go forward and keep the truth they have already received by embracing all to which it leads, or lose what they have in the misery of doubt and unbelief. The day of grace for dogmatic Protestants is well-nigh gone.
We have only to add the earnest wish that Catholics generally would read this book and profit by the instruction it contains. There are very many among us who might lead others to the truth, if they were better informed as to the grounds of their faith, and the points of controversy which separate the conflicting Christian sects from the church. Idleness and ignorance will be a fearful burden to bear before the Judge of all. The talent hidden in the ground will be demanded with interest, and the unprofitable [pg 575] servant will have to answer for light unimproved and grace unfruitful. The souls we could have saved will rise up against us in the day of our greatest need. “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required.”
T. S. P.
Three Essays on Religion. By John Stuart Mill. New York: Henry Holt & Co. 1874.
What John Stuart Mill was, and what his life was, our readers have been already informed in a review of his Autobiography. The prince of modern English sophists and sceptics, he was as miserable and hopeless in life and death as the victim of an atheistical education might be expected to be; as miserable as a man outwardly prosperous, enjoying the resources of a cultivated mind, and exempted by the moral force of his character from the consequences of gross crimes, could well become. These three Essays are essays of the unhappy sceptic to reduce his readers to the same miserable condition. Their scope is to overturn, not revealed religion alone, but all theism; to destroy the belief in God; and to substitute the most dreary atheism, fatalism, and nihilism for the glorious, elevating, consoling faith of the Christian, and the imperfect but yet, in itself, ennobling philosophy of the higher class of rationalists. It is a very bad sign for our age, and a worse omen for the future, that men can profess atheism without incurring public odium and disgrace, and that respectable publishers find it for their interest to flood the market with the deadly literature which is worse than that of France during the age of Bayle and Voltaire. A large class of book-sellers may always be found, not scrupulous or over-sensitive in their consciences about right and wrong in morals, when money is to be made. We suppose, however, that those of them who expect to make fortunes and transmit them to their children would like to have the good order of society continue. What can such gentlemen be thinking of when they help to lay the train under the foundations of order and social morality? We know of a man who helped to run his own bank, in which he had many thousands of dollars invested, by demanding specie for a hundred-dollar bill during a panic. Old John Bunyan tells of a certain person living in the town of Mansoul whose name was Mr. Penny wise-pound-foolish. Every one who helps on the spread of atheism, materialism, impiety in any shape, even if he makes money or fame by it, is helping to run his own bank. Moreover, he is helping to train the generation of those who will cut the throats of the whole class he belongs to. We are just now very wisely, though somewhat tardily, bringing the odious Mormon criminals to justice, by a kind of blind Christian instinct which still survives in our public opinion. What is the consistency or use of this, if we are going to look on apathetically and see the next generation all over our country turned into atheists? Practical atheism is worse than the most hideous and revolting form of Mormonism. Why mend a broken spar when mutineers are scuttling the ship from stem to stern? Would it not be well for those conductors of the press who have some principles and some belief in them, for the clergy, and for all who have access in some form to the ear of a portion of the public, to be a little more alive to the danger from the spread of atheism, and a little more active in counteracting it?
Pardon, gentlemen, for disturbing your nap. You are very drowsy, but is it not time for you to wake up?
Eagle and Dove. From the French of Mademoiselle Fleuriot, by Emily Bowles. New York: P. O. Shea. 1874.
This is a story of Breton life and of the events of the siege and the Commune of Paris. It is superior to the common run of stories in artistic merit, its characters and scenes have a peculiar and romantic interest, and its religious and moral tone is up to the highest mark.
The Works of Aurelius Augustine, Etc. Vol. XI. Tractates on the Gospel of S. John, Vol. II.; Vol. XII. Anti-Pelagian works, Vol. II. Edinburgh: J. & J. Clark. 1874. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)
Two more volumes of the splendid edition of S. Augustine's works are here presented, and deserve a warm welcome. It is difficult to see how they will serve the cause of the Church of England, but that is the affair of the editors, not ours. Of course they are mighty weapons for High-Churchmen against their Low and [pg 576] Broad Church antagonists. But they tell equally against these same High-Churchmen in favor of the Catholic Church. The treatise against Vincentius Victor, in Vol. XII., is crowded with denunciations of the Donatists, who are the prototypes of Anglicans, except in one respect, viz., that the former had valid orders.
Rhymes and Jingles. (Illustrated.) By Mary Mapes Dodge, author of Hans Brinker, etc. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1875.
This is a very pretty book for a Christmas present. The rhymes are nice, and such as will please, amuse, sometimes instruct folk of the nursery. The illustrations are numerous and well executed, some are funny, some remarkably beautiful. Any little boy or girl who has not already been surfeited with toys and books may be made happy by such a gift. Merry little people, a merry Christmas to you!
Library of the Sacred Heart. Baltimore: J. Murphy & Co. 1874.
This is something towards supplying a great need among Catholic publications. There are numerous and beautiful series of books issued by the sectarian press, but comparatively few by Catholic publishers. Any one who has had to procure Catholic libraries knows this want. Such series are great aids in supplying Sunday-school or household libraries. We welcome the above, and trust it will be followed by others of the same kind. Much credit is due to the publishers for their selection and the neat appearance of the volumes. The selection comprises six small and choice spiritual works. God our Father and the Happiness of Heaven, by the same author, have been noticed with high praise in our columns. The others also are standard works. We recommend this “Library of the Sacred Heart,” and hope it will be appreciated. It is contained in a neat and tasteful box, appropriately ornamented with pious emblems of the Sacred Heart.
Bric-a-Brac Series—No. IV.: Personal Reminiscences by Barham, Harness, and Hodder. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1874.
This is quite up to the mark of the foregoing volumes, and full of very agreeable anecdotes, criticisms, and literary chit-chat.
Announcement.—We shall begin, next month the publication of a new serial story, entitled Are you my Wife? by the author of Paris before the War, Number Thirteen, A Daughter of S. Dominic, Pius VI., etc., etc.
The Catholic World. Vol. XX., No. 119.—February, 1875.
Church Authority And Personal Responsibility:
A Letter Prom Aubrey De Vere To Sara Coleridge On The Catholic Philosophy Of The “Rule Of Faith,” Considered Especially With Reference To The Transcendental System Of S. T. Coleridge.[149]
A letter to me, printed in the Memoir of Sara Coleridge, and dated October 19, 1851, contains the following passage: “Viewing the Romish system as you do, my dear friend, I cannot regret that you think, as you do, of the compatibility of my father's scheme of philosophy therewith, assured, as I feel, that he had done that Papal system too much justice to believe in it as a divine institution” (vol. ii. p. 401). From my youth I had been an ardent student of Coleridge's philosophy, to the illustration of which his daughter, indifferent to her own literary fame, so faithfully devoted her great powers. That philosophy had largely inspired F. D. Maurice's remarkable work, The Kingdom of Christ; and I believed firmly that it was, at least as compared with the empirical philosophy of the last century, in harmony with Catholic teaching, rightly understood; and that the objections made against that teaching were such as a transcendentalist must regard as proceeding, not from any intuitions or ideas of the “reason,” but from the cavils of that notional understanding called by Coleridge “the faculty judging according to sense.” I have lately found a letter written by me to my lamented friend less than a fortnight after her letter quoted above, and about a fortnight before I made my submission to the Catholic Church. It may interest [pg 578] some of those who have read Sara Coleridge's letters, and who are enquirers as to the method proper for reaching solid conclusions in the domain of truth not scientific and discovered by man, but religious, and revealed to him.
It was my object to show that the Catholic “rule of faith” does not oppose, but alone adequately vindicates, some great principles with which it has been contrasted, e.g., personal action, the dependence of individual souls on divine grace, religious freedom, zeal for truth, the interior character of genuine piety, and the value of “internal evidences.” That “rule” has been stigmatized as a bondage. This is the illusion of those who, regarding the church from without, and under the influence of modern and national traditions, see but a part of her system, and have not compared it with other parts. The Catholic law of belief I endeavored to set forth as the only one consistent with a sound philosophy when treating of things supernatural, and as such beyond the method of induction and experiment, while it is also both primitive and Scriptural. I wished to show that it is the only means by which we can possess the revealed truth with certainty and at once in its fulness and its purity; and to illustrate it as not alone our gate of access to truth “spiritually discerned,” but the nurse and the protectress of our whole spiritual life, with all its redeemed affections; as opposed, not to personal action and responsibility, or to a will free and strong, because loyal, but to an unintelligent pride and to a feeble self-will, the slave of individual caprice; as the antagonist, not of what is transcendent and supernatural in religion, but of a religious philosophy in which the philosophy exalts itself against the religion, “running after” revelation to “take somewhat of it,” but not inheriting its blessing.
Twenty-three years have passed since my letter was written; and year after year has deepened in me the convictions which it expresses, or rather which it indicates in a fragmentary way, and possibly not with a technical accuracy. In the church I have found an ever-deepening peace, a freedom ever widening, a genuine and a fruitful method for theological thought, and a truth which brightens more and more into the perfect day. External to her fold, it is but too probable that I should long since have drifted into unbelief, though a reluctant and perhaps unconscious unbelief.
After some preliminary matter, referring to our earlier discussions, the letter continues as follows:
Divine faith is a theological virtue, the gift of God, which raises the spirit to believe and confess, with a knowledge absolutely certain, though obscure in kind, the whole truth which God has revealed to man. Such is the description which Roman Catholic writers give of a grace which cannot be defined. The knowledge of faith is as certain as that of mathematics, but wholly different in kind, including a moral and spiritual power, affecting (if it be living faith) the mind and will at once, as light and heat are united in the sunbeam, and containing, like the sunbeam, many other secret properties also. It far transcends the certainty of any one of our senses, each of which may deceive us. It is also essentially different from that intellectual vision which belongs to the kingdom of glory, not of grace or of nature. Its nearest analogon is human faith, through which we [pg 579] believe that we are the children of our reputed parents, and on which, and not on demonstration, the basis of human life is laid. But it differs essentially also from human faith. It is supernatural, not natural. It is certain, not uncertain. In its application to supernatural objects it is wholly independent of imagination or enthusiasm; and it brings us into real intercourse with objective truth. False religions rest on that which simulates divine faith, and may, even among Christians, so fill its place that the difference is not discernible to human eyes—a mixture of human faith with aspiration, imagination, and the other natural faculties. True religion carries with it the special faculty by which it is capable of being realized, and thus makes a revelation which they but seemed to make. But this faculty is not a natural one awakened, but a supernatural one bestowed, its ordinary antecedents being the corresponding moral virtues of humility and purity; and the exercise of human faith and other devout affections, themselves stimulated by a different and inferior kind of grace, bestowed on the whole family even of unregenerate man. Besides the antecedent conditions for receiving, other conditions are necessary for the realization and right application of the divine and illuminating grace. These conditions are not arbitrary, but spring from the necessities of our whole nature, both individual and corporate. They are ordinarily the individual co-operation of will, mind, and heart, and an attitude of willing submission to God, or the prophet through whom the objects of faith are propounded to us by him. This prophet was the Messiah himself while he walked on earth, and was the Apostolic College from the day of Pentecost. He continues to address us, in a manner equally distinct, through that church in whom, as catholic and yet one, the unity of the Apostolic College (one in union with Peter) still abides. That church is the body of Christ; and we are introduced at once into it and him through baptism. The visible rite corresponds with the invisible grace bestowed through it, just as the church itself is at once the spiritual kingdom of peace, and the visible “mountain of the Lord's house” elevated to the summit of the mountains, and as man himself, consists of soul and body.
That church, inheriting a belief which it never invented or discovered, confesses Christ, and confesses also that she is Christ's representative on earth. She challenges individual faith, and proposes to it the one object of dogmatic belief. That one object is the whole Christian faith, as it has hitherto been, or ever may be, authentically defined. Whether it be believed implicitly, as by the peasant, or explicitly, as by the doctor, makes no difference whatever, relatively to faith, though it may affect edification, which needs a due proportion between our intellectual and moral gifts. In each case alike (1) the whole faith is held; (2) is held bonâ fide, as revealed by God; (3) is held wholly by supernatural faith; (4) affords thus a basis for the supernatural life of hope and charity. “Fundamentals,” as distinguished from “non-essentials,” there are none, i.e., objectively. All Christian truths are in each other by implication, as Adam's race was in the first parent. They are yet more transcendently in each other, for each [pg 580] contains all. To receive one by divine faith is to receive all. To deny one, when competently proposed to us by the authority which speaks in God's name, is to deny all, unless circumstances beyond our will have deceived our mind respecting that authority or its message. The whole objective faith will probably never be recognized, till in the kingdom of glory it flashes upon us in its unity. In the kingdom of grace (in via, not in patria) it is defined in proportion to the moral and intellectual needs of the church. It is defined, not as a science, but from necessity, and to meet the gainsaying of heresy. The endeavor of the church is to preserve the treasure confided to her. It cannot increase, but the knowledge of it must. Subjectively, the knowledge is progressive as man is progressive; but objectively it is unchanging as God is eternal. The whole, defined and undefined, is essential and one. The whole is needed for the race, that the race may retain Christ, its head. The knowledge of the whole is needed by each according to his circumstances. The entire belief of the entire truth, implicitly, is necessary for each individual. Ordinarily, and except in the case of involuntary error, that entire belief of the whole is realized through a submission (absolute but free, filial, and necessitated by all our Christian sympathies and spiritual affections, as well as by obedience) to her who is God's representative, visible, on earth.
The existence of that visible church is wholly irrespective of our needing an expositor of dogmatic faith. Its character is determined (1) by the character of God, whom it images alike in his unity and his plurality; (2) by the character of Christianity, which is communicated to the race, and to the individual in and with the body, so that nothing that he holds can be held singly, except what is perishable; and (3) by the character of man, who graduates in a certain order, and who, as a mixed being, is taught after a fashion that ever exalts the meek and raises the moral faculties above the intellectual in endless elevation, however high the latter may ascend. But among its other functions, the visible church has that of presenting to the infused habit of faith what otherwise it would seek for in vain, i.e., a dogmatic authority which, in act, it can rise to, cleave to, and live by. If Christ reigned visibly on earth, he would need no such representative. If Christ, as the Eternal Reason, inspired each man, as well as enlightening him, he need never have assumed flesh. If the Holy Ghost inspired each man as he did the prophets and apostles (instead of communicating to him the grace of faith, planting him in the church, feeding him with the Lord's body, quickening his devout affections, etc.), then there would be no need for the church, as a dogmatic authority, nor for the Holy Scriptures. If the Bible were a plain book; if the nature of truth were such that it could be divided into fundamental and non-essential; if one doctrine could be believed, while another, involved in it, is denied, then, perhaps, private judgment might extract from the Bible as much as an individual requires. Again, if supernatural faith were not requisite, but human faith, founded on evidence, and generating opinion, sufficed, then private judgment, availing itself of all human helps suggested by prudence, could [pg 581] build up on the Bible, on philosophy, on ecclesiastical traditions, and on the public opinion of the day, a certain scheme of thought on sacred subjects, round which the affections would cluster, to which devout associations would cling, which the understanding might formalize, imagination brighten, enthusiasm exult in, prudence recommend. But these are all suppositions, not realities. Private “inspiration” is known to be a fallacy. “Reason” cannot make reasonable men agree; and every one who has any portion in reason knows that what is disputed for ages is disputable, and that what is not truth to all cannot be truth absolute and certain, on the ground of reason, to any one. Uncertain opinion cannot be supernatural faith. Spiritual discernment cannot lead us to the finer appreciation of doctrine while we remain ignorant as to whether it be a particular doctrine or the opposite doctrine that challenges our faith.
But, on the other hand, if an authority speaks in God's name, it may be really commissioned by him. If so commissioned, it may be believed by us. If believed, all parts of its message are equally certain. This hypothesis obviously admits of an objective faith certain throughout, and only for that reason certain at all. If a revelation were to be founded on faith, this would afford faith a sphere. I speak of it now as but an hypothesis. I claim for it that it is reasonable.
It is objected that such belief could be but an amiable and useful credulity at best, since it would not be founded on insight and spiritual discernment. It is thus that Hindoos and Mahometans believe; and their belief would be worthless, but that by God's mercy some fragments of truth and some gleams of reason are mixed up with their systems. The objection wholly overlooks the fact that ex hypothesi the prophet and her message are believed, not with a human faith, but with a divine faith. Faith is inclusively the gift of spiritual discernment, though it is also much more. What faith receives must be spiritually discerned. It can discern in no other way.
But, it is objected, the plain fact is that multitudes do not spiritually discern or appreciate what they thus receive. No doubt. Nothing is more possible than that they should receive with only a human faith what yet is divinely addressed to a divine faith. They have, then, opportunities which they have not yet used. Multitudes of Roman Catholics have doubtless, like multitudes of Protestants, opinion only, not certainty, while the sensation of certainty is in both cases illusory, and proceeds from positiveness of temper or sluggishness of mind.[150] To possess the means of realizing and maintaining faith compels no man to have faith; otherwise, like intuitions irrespective of the will, it would merit nothing and include no probation. Faith and the guide of faith are both offered to the Catholic; but he must co-operate with grace, as with Providence, to profit by either.
But how, it is asked, can we by such a process have a spiritual discernment [pg 582] of the doctrine by which we are challenged? Are we not in the position, after all, of Hindoos? I answer, Christianity resembles many false religions in this respect: that it comes to us on what claims to be authority, and challenges our submission; but it differs from them in this all-important respect: that others are false, and it is true. It being true, the human mind, which, so far as it retains the divine image, is in sympathy with truth, has a moral appreciation of its truth, and, when illuminated by faith, has a spiritual discernment of it. No one who, after years of wandering in erroneous paths, comes at last to contemplate the doctrine of the Trinity from a new point of view, and accepts it on what he trusts is a spiritual discernment of it, can doubt that he could equally have discerned its truth years before had he been led by the church to the same point of view, and gifted from above with that light which removes the sensuous film. He could not indeed, on the authority of the church, spiritually receive or hold, with genuine faith, something in itself false and absurd. But then part of the hypothesis is that the church can propound no doctrinal error. Neither could the definition give faith. But then it does not profess to do so; it but shapes and directs faith. As little could the authority of the church give faith. It makes no such profession; it but challenges faith. It is the inseparable condition of faith: God is its source. The human mind, co-operating with grace, receives faith, and at the same time is confronted with a distinct, palpable object of faith. So touched, it becomes the mirror of truth; and its belief is exclusively a personal and internal act, though performed with the instrumentality, not only of an outward agency, but of a specific external agency, i.e., the church. The same Divine Spirit acts at once externally and internally—externally in the church, which it commissions, instructs, and keeps one; internally in the individual mind, which it kindles, illuminates, attracts, and (dissolving the tyranny of self-love) lifts up into freedom and power. The Holy Spirit, then, is at once the root of faith in the individual, and of unity in the church. This doctrine may be objected to as ideal; but surely not as carnal. Assuredly it is Scriptural.
But, it is rejoined, “supposing that the divine message may be spiritually discerned when it is devoutly accepted, and thus accepted as a whole, when it would otherwise be accepted but in part (and then, perhaps, with but a partial faith), still how are we to know that the authority is divine? If no belief, however sound, is faith, unless it (1st) believes, and (2d) truly believes, that it rests on divine testimony and listens to God himself, how is this prophet to be recognized? The world abounds in claimants to infallibility, though the Christian world has but one. The apostles indeed claimed it; but then they wrought miracles, and the miracles proved the authority.” I answer that miracles proved nothing by way of scientific demonstration; but that they witnessed to the supernatural character of the teacher and the doctrine. If the divine message could be proved to the reason, it would rest on science, not on faith, and the whole Christian scheme would be reversed, belief becoming a necessary and natural act. Miracles challenged faith, but could only be received by faith, since they might always be referred to [pg 583] imposture or evil spirits, both classes of agency abounding in the time of Simon Magus as now. It is begging the question to assume that miracles do not take place now; but, even conceding thus much, the church has still at least as high credentials as the apostles had. Their miracles constituted but evidence; and evidence which creates opinion can but challenge faith, not extort it. In place of that evidence we have now the “notes of the church”: its apostolicity, its catholicity, its unity, its sanctity, its heroic history, its wonderful promulgation, its martyrs, its doctors, its schoolmen; communities moulded by it; races united by it; sciences and arts first nourished by it; civilization and freedom produced by it, and, amid all the changes of the world, the same great doctrines and sacraments retained by it. We can hardly doubt that the one stupendous fact of the church is as strong an appeal to the faith of a man (and our Lord himself did but appeal to faith) as that made by an apostle at Athens, when, rising up in a mixed multitude of disputatious Greeks, Eastern sorcerers, Roman conjurers, and Jewish refugees, he assured them that he had been sent by the unknown God to preach what to the Greeks was foolishness: that One who was crucified had also worked miracles and risen from the dead, . . . that his kingdom, and not the Roman, was to crown the world; and that all this was the fulfilment of Jewish prophecy, though the Jewish nation disowned that kingdom, and had slain its Head. He spoke of glories to come: the church speaks of triumphs that have been. He suggested an experiment: the church has tried and proved it. He was accused of blasphemy, superstition, atheism, insubordination; so is she. He must have confessed that inspiration was not given to him alone, but to the Apostolic College; and he could have brought no immediate and scientific proof that he and his scattered brethren agreed in the same doctrine, even as to “essentials.” The church's practical unity of doctrine is a matter of notoriety, and is accounted for by the imputation of tyranny, formalism, etc. It is an understatement to affirm that, on the Roman Catholic hypothesis, that church challenges faith with the aid of as strong evidential witness as an apostle possessed. But the quantum of evidence is not the question. The greatest amount of it cannot give faith, the least may elicit it; and at what periods the world requires most evidence we know not. The important fact is that the church which claims for its centre the apostolic see, does challenge faith just as an apostle did, or as the whole apostolic college did; that she is apostolic, not merely by having the succession, but by using the authority, and by acting just as she must act if, as she affirms, the whole college, in union with Peter, lived on in her. She too claims all and gives all. She too says, “Through me you may exercise divine faith when you receive, ‘by hearing,’ the message of God; for I am his apostle. What I saw and heard, what I handled and tasted, that, as a sure witness, I report. It was I who cast my nets on the Galilean shore when I was called. I heard that question, ‘But whom say ye that I am?’ I knelt on the Mount of Transfiguration when the suppressed glory broke forth and the law and the prophets were irradiated. I joined in [pg 584] that Last Supper. I stood beside his cross, and received his mother as my mother. I reached forth my hand, and put my fingers into the print of the nails. I received the charge, saw the ascension, felt the Pentecostal tongues, delivered my message, sealed it with my blood, and still stand up, delivering it for ever, and sealing it with my blood and with his.” This is the claim the church makes, and the same was made by the apostle. Both alike are subject to the rejoinder, “High claims do not prove themselves; and the competitors for infallibility are many.” Both alike answer: “If my message be false, you could not really and vitally believe in me, even though you would. If my message be true, you may believe in me, but I cannot compel you to do so.” It is not more wonderful that there should be rival priesthoods than rival creeds. There are many false because there is one true. Authority has commonly been claimed even by spurious religions, because the instinct of the human race, which is reason, perceived that if God vouchsafed a revelation to man, it would be both given and sustained through man, and not merely through a book.
From the above statements thus much at least is clear: (1) that the Protestant controversy with Rome does not respect the ultimate source of belief, which, by the admission of both sides, is to be referred to the Holy Spirit alone; but does respect this question, viz., whether, since an external agency is admitted to be in every case instrumentally but absolutely necessary for faith, that aid be not given to us by God, and given in the form of one, specific instrument, not any one that comes to hand—something easily known by outward marks which plainly solicit attention, not a proteus that changes almost as the individual mind changes. The question is whether the something external confessedly essential be the church of God and temple of the Spirit, speaking intelligibly and with authority, in the majesty of its visible unity; or be whatever sect or teacher may represent to plastic minds the public opinion of the place and time.
And (2) it is equally plain that Rome, in denouncing the principle of private judgment (except so far as, in abnormal circumstances, we are reduced to it, or something like it, while testing the claims of authority), is in no degree disparaging individual intuition, but simply stating the conditions, external as well as internal, under which it can be effectually and permanently realized. To see with another's eyes, not one's own, is an absurd aspiration which could not have made itself good for the greater part of the Christian era, over the greater part of the Christian world. But a man may use his own eyes, though together with them he uses a telescope, and his own ears, though he listens to the voice of a prophet instead of his own voice, or his domineering neighbor's.
The Roman Catholic doctrine of authority does not assume that we cannot, even without that authority, have some insight into divine things. We can see the moon without a telescope, though not the stars of a nebula. But in theology partial gleams of intelligence are not sufficient for even their own permanence. Implicitly or explicitly, we must hold the whole to hold a part. Truth is a vast globe which we may touch with a finger, but cannot clasp in both hands. It eludes us, and we possess it but by being [pg 585] possessed by it. We must be drawn into the gravitation of its sphere and made one with it. We are thus united with it if in union with the church, to which it is given. We then see it all around us, as we see the world we live in—not by glimpses and through mists, as we see a remote star. This is the Catholic's faith. Everything confirms everything in his world. “One day telleth another, and one night certifieth another.” “Sea calleth unto sea.” The firmament above his head “declares” the glory of God, and the chambers of the deep his statutes. A Catholic indeed has his varying moods, and his “dry moods,” and his eager questionings on points not revealed; but his faith does not rise and fall with his temperament. The foundation, at least, of his spiritual being, is a rock.
Neither does the Roman Catholic doctrine deny that a man might conceivably, though not practically, without the aid of authority, grasp the whole of theology as far as it has been yet defined. But it declares that such knowledge, if thus acquired, would not be the knowledge possessed by faith, but by opinion; that it would rest partly on science, partly on mere human faith, partly on enthusiasm (so far as the sensitive appreciation of it went); and that, not being divine faith, it could not perform the genuine functions of faith. The intellectual region might feast with Dives, while the spiritual starved with Lazarus. This is, in a greater or lesser degree, the case with many, both among those who profess the principle of private judgment and those who profess to obey authority. In the very region of faith opinion may simulate faith, just as presumption may simulate hope and benevolence simulate charity. The most mysterious part of our probation is this: that under all circumstances and in all things nature may mimic grace, and pretence ape virtue. We may seem to ourselves angels, and be nothing; even as Christ himself, and his church no less, seem, to the eye of sense, the opposite of what they are, when insight is lacking or the point of view is determined by prejudice or a false tradition.
The Roman Catholic theory does not deny the force of internal evidence. It but says that such evidence, being a matter of moral feeling, is to be inwardly appreciated rather than logically set forth, and that it is often most felt when most unconsciously. A parent's authority is not the less attested by the moral sense of the child and by his affections, though he does not consciously reflect on that part of its evidence; while yet he cannot be ignorant that all the neighbors believe that those who claim to be his parents are such in reality. Catholic teaching does not concede that, as argument, any evidence is necessary for those brought up in the true fold and gifted from childhood with faith, which is itself the evidence of things not seen. It does not believe that any gifts confined to a few can give a higher faith than is open to all “men of good-will.” But it does believe that for simple and learned alike one external condition is necessary, viz., that the doctrine to be believed should be distinctly proposed by an authority believed (on supernatural faith) to speak in God's name; so that from first to last faith should be, not a credulity founded on fancy, on fear, or on self-love, but a “theological virtue” believing in God, in all that he reveals, [pg 586]as revealed by him, and in nothing else. Evidences are not anything that can compel faith or be a substitute for it; but they have commonly a very important place, notwithstanding, in the divine economy. Their place is among the motives of faith. These intellectual motives are the character of Christ and of the faith; the character of the church and its propagation—in other words, internal and external evidence. The moral motives are such as the spiritual safety of Christian obedience, the peace and joy of believing, the dignity Christianity confers on human nature, etc.
One circumstance which the Protestant theory forgets is that all knowledge of divine things is not necessarily faith. Angelic knowledge and that of the triumphant church is vision, not faith, and differs from faith either in essence or in inseparable accidents. The knowledge we have of God through natural theology, however true, is not, therefore, identical with divine faith. Irrespectively of Christianity, a belief in God precedes speculations, and comes to children chiefly by faith in what they hear from their parents. They could not, indeed, believe their parents equally if their own minds were not in harmony with such a belief; but in their case, too, authority is commonly a condition of believing. By faith, says S. Paul, “we know that the worlds were made.” That knowledge comes to us both through testimony and by intuitions. The “heavens declare the glory of God”; but they declare it, not prove it scientifically; and the Psalmist had the patriarchal tradition and Mosaic revelation, as well as his intuitions, and as their interpreter. Natural theology we accept by human faith concurring with natural lights and that lower degree of grace which compasses the whole world. Divine faith, S. Paul tells us, requires an outward organ, too, not for its promulgation only, but for its certainty. “He gave some apostles, some pastors, etc.,” “that we be not driven about with every wind of doctrine.” Could this effect have been realized if apostle had preached against apostle, and each prophet had said to his neighbor “I, too, am a prophet,” and bear an opposite message? S. Paul says that the hierarchy is ordained not only for edification, but to make faith certain. It can only do that in its unity. Had certainty been unnecessary, or had reason been its organ, no hierarchy would have been elevated to constitute the church representative.
The Protestant theory (it may be so spoken of with reference to the great main points included in most forms of Protestantism) assumes that the one great characteristic of faith is its being a power of “spiritual discernment” or an intuition of spiritual truth. This is to put a part of the truth in place of the whole. This attribute of faith is asserted by the church also; but her conception of faith is founded on a larger appreciation of the Holy Scriptures and of man's compound nature.
Faith indeed becomes a spiritual seeing; but it comes “by hearing.” Considered even exclusively as intuition, the “spiritual discernment” is wholly different in kind from moral or mathematical intuitions, as those two classes of intuition differ from each other. A spiritual intuition, analogous to that of reason (though more exalted), would be utterly unsuited to our needs while still laboring in our probation and toiling in the “body of this [pg 587] death.” The intuition really vouchsafed to us by supernatural grace ever retains peculiar characteristics originally produced by the mode in which we receive it. Humility, submission, self-abnegation, constitute that mode; and these qualities are and remain as essential characteristics of true faith as spiritual discernment is. No otherwise than “as little children” is it possible for us to enter into the kingdom of heaven. We must enter the sheep-fold by the door; we cannot otherwise profit by it; for could we climb its walls, it would cease to be the sheep-fold to us, since we should not bear in our breasts the heart of the Lamb. Opinion asserts; faith confesses. Assertion includes self-assertion; confession confesses another. God only can rightly assert himself. Created beings are relative beings, and the condition of their true greatness is that they forget themselves in God. The very essence of pride, the sin of the fallen angels, whom but a single voluntary evil thought subverted, is self-assertion on the part of a relative being. In taking self as a practical ground of knowledge, it, in a certain sense, creates its Creator, and involves the principle that God himself may be but an idea. Pride is not only our strongest spiritual temptation, but is almost the natural instinct of reason, working by itself, on supernatural themes, and it remains undetected by reason, just as water cannot be weighed in water. The higher we soar, the more we need to be reminded of our infirmity; therefore the glorious intuitions of faith are, for our safety, given to us by the way of humility, and continued to us on condition of obedience. Not only faith, as a habit, is humble, but the peculiar species of knowledge which it conveys is such as to preserve that character; for that knowledge is obscure, although certain. We see, “as through a glass, darkly”; but we see steadily. Imaginative reason gets bright flashes by rubbing its own eyes, but they are transient. Faith, requiring docility as a habit in us, and involving obscurity as a condition of its knowledge, is a perpetual discipline of self-sacrifice. Christianity is the doctrine of a sacrifice; and through a spiritual act and habit of self-sacrifice alone can that doctrine be “spiritually discerned.” Christian knowledge is thus the opposite of the rationalistic and of the Gnostic.
This estimate of faith is surely as Scriptural as it is philosophic. Thus only can we reconcile the statements of our Lord and of S. Paul. The most humble and child-like docility is constantly referred to by our Lord as an essential part of that faith which, on condition of so beginning and of continuing such, imparts to us as much spiritual discernment as is an earnest of the Blessed Vision. Such docility must look like credulity. Almost all the instances of it which met his highest praise did look like credulity, and would have been credulity had not grace inspired them, Providence directed them, and Truth itself rewarded them. What then? Which part of Christianity is not thus double-visaged? What part of it is not a scandal to them that “judge by appearances” and do not “judge righteous judgment”? If to all without faith the Master must seem an impostor, why should not the disciples seem enthusiasts? Were they who wished that the shadow of the apostles should fall on them, was she who touched the hem of Christ's garment, fanatics, because erring nature too can [pg 588] prompt her children to similar acts under an erring religion? Before such a philosophy (if philosophy can rest on such an assumption) the Gospel, as well as the church of the orbis terrarum, and the whole ancient church, must give way, and pure religion must be a discovery, not of the XVIth, but of the XIXth century. Credulity itself is but a subordinate and ill-grounded form of human faith, and is far from suppressing, though it misdirects, the nobler faculties of the natural man. Plato and Bacon had more of it than Epicurus and Hobbes. Docility (its analogon in the spiritual world) is the humbler element in faith. It is absolutely necessary, and is sometimes undistinguishable, in mere outward seeming, from its natural counterpart. Milk is as necessary for babes as meat for the mature. The mature never cease, in the kingdom of heaven, to be, inclusively, children; it is their very excellence that they unite the best characteristics of different ages, sexes, and conditions. Yet the children of the kingdom are not fed on mortal, but on immortal, milk; and that milk is meat in a less compact preparation. As an incredulous habit is not a mark of true wisdom, so an indocile habit is incompatible with an authentic faith, which cannot act except in obedience to an authentic authority. To the rationalist the indocile habit, far from being a fault, is a necessity; for his knowledge comes from within only, not from above and from within.
Now let us turn to history and fact. Had they no spiritual discernment of Christ who died for him? Yet did not the martyrs and the age of martyrs abound in what to Protestantism seem credulities? The church of the apostles, of the fathers, of the doctors, of the schoolmen, the church that built up Christendom, invariably recognized the principle of ecclesiastical obedience, docility, submission, as a part of faith, not as inconsistent with the intuition of faith—its moral element, as the other is its intellectual. It was the cement that kept the whole fabric together, though not the amphionic power that raised the living stones. Those who branded obedience as superstition were Arius, and Aërius, and Vigilantius, and the Albigensian heretics, not the fathers, the doctors, or the martyrs of the faith. The latter knew that the faith of him who lays hold of Christ, and of her who but touches “the hem of his garment,” are in kind the same. They knew also, that, when truth confronts us and grace is offered, the spirit which is “offended” at little things is not edified by great. And how has it been ever since; how is it now with the mass of the world? How does faith come to children and to the poor, and to the busy and to the dull? What makes the Bible divine to them? What suggests the truths which they are to look for in the Bible? Authority, everywhere acting through such representatives of authority as remain in lands which decry it! If docility, obedience, a desire to believe, submission previous to insight, be not, under Christian conditions, characteristics of faith, merely because, under pagan conditions, they might be opposed to spiritual knowledge, then have most believers believed in vain; for error cannot be the foundation of truth. Discernment belongs, by universal confession, to faith, and baptism is the “sacrament of illumination”; but no proposition can be more unreasonable than that faith should begin with, or be identical with, an insight which, in a high [pg 589] degree of conscious development, obviously belongs to the few, and to them under very special circumstances.
Let us return to the philosophy of the “rule of faith.”
No one would deny that the will, even more than the mind, is the seat of faith; but the Protestant theory does not efficiently and practically recognize this truth. Submission is in the will; discernment in the mind. The latter belongs to the man chiefly; the former to the child equally, and the child living on in the Christian man. The whole Catholic system is based on this fact. From it, for instance, follows, by inevitable consequence, the true theory of charity in reference to dogmatic error—that, namely, of “invincible ignorance.” Protestants, and Protestants who repeat the Athanasian Creed, think this expression but an evasion. But “invincible ignorance” means involuntary ignorance of the truth, and is based on the known principle that heresy must be a sin of the will, because faith is a virtue, primarily belonging to the will, when it submits to grace. Now, granting that the internal agency of the Divine Spirit is that which clears the faculty of spiritual discernment and develops faith in the mind, still, assuredly, obedience is trained and faith is rooted in the will by the same Spirit addressing us through its outward organ, the church. “Obedience to the faith” is not a principle only, but a habit. Habits are impressed on us, not by precept only, but by providential circumstance and divine institutions, such as the civil power, parental rule, the weakness of infancy, the hindrances of knowledge, those necessities for social co-operation which train the sympathies.
Implicit faith in the Bible only might, for such as entertained it with absolute and childlike confidence, give rise to no small degree of moral deference, and does so with many Protestants, though not without a considerable alloy of error and of superstition. But a book, though divine, is a book still. It cannot speak, except with the inquirer for an interpreter. It cannot correct misinterpretations. It will often reveal what is sought, and hide what is not desired, but is needed. It will “find” those who find in it what they brought to it. It is plastic in hot and heedless hands. It may train the mental faculties, but it will not practically exercise a habit of submission. If a country, in place of possessing laws, with magistrates to enforce and judges to expound them, possessed nothing but statutes on parchment, and a vast legal literature for their exposition, statutes and comments being alike commended to the private judgment of individuals, would it be possible that subjects could be trained up with the habit or spirit of political obedience? Every man might be educated till he resembled a village attorney; but loyalty would be extinct. The statute-book would still assert the principle of obedience, as does the Bible in spiritual things; but the habit could not thus be formed. To bow exclusively to that which addresses us in abstract terms, and to bow when and how our judgment dictates—this alone is not in reality, though it may be in words, a discipline of humility. To obey God, as represented by man, is that at which pride revolts. The authority of the church in the household and kingdom of Christ is like that of the father in the family and the monarch in his realm. An [pg 590] authority thus objectively embodied has also a special power of working through the affections; and to train them to be the handmaids of faith is one of the special functions of the church. “My little children of whom I travail again,” says S. Paul to his flock. What living church can be imagined as thus addressing her children? Surely none save that one which claims apostolic authority, and does not shrink from proclaiming that faith includes obedience as well as insight. This is not an idle theory. What men in the Roman Catholic Church have entertained the most filial and affectionate reverence for their mother? Her saints—those who had the most ardent love for their Lord, the deepest insight into his Gospel, and the keenest appreciation of its spiritual freedom—the S. Bernards, Thomas à Kempises, Francis de Saleses. To retain obedience as a principle, and yet cheat it of its object, an authentic and real authority, was the “Arch Mock” of the “Reformation.”
A faith thus confirmed and steadied by authentic authority can alone permanently sustain the ardent and enthusiastic devotion of strong minds. Faith, or what seems faith, if resting exclusively on internal feeling and individual opinion, will vehemently, if but transiently, excite the light and the impulsive; but the graver mind will distrust it, even when visited by the more sanguine mood, from a painful sense that it has no power of discriminating between faith and illusion. It will be sure of its own perceptions and sensations; but it cannot contrive wholly to ignore those of its neighbor when they are opposite. It will remember that there are two causes of uncertainty, the first arising when our own premises admit of alternative conclusions, the second when, the conclusions being obvious, the premises are disputed and cannot be proved. It will remember that mathematical and moral intuitions, “though independent of evidence, are yet backed by a practically universal consent (the result of their being, in a large measure, intuitions independent of the will); and it may be disposed to say that if it happened that most people denied that the three angles of a triangle equalled two right angles, I could not indeed believe that they made three, but I might come to believe that I had wandered into a region in which impressions must always seem certain, but yet in which nothing could be authentically known.” Men cannot exchange their tastes; but then they know that tastes are subjective; whereas revealed truth must be objective. Some such misgiving will chill faith commonly in large and steady minds, and thus the whole religious life is struck dead. Enthusiasm will commonly, under such circumstances, belong only to those minds which boil over before they have taken in much heat. A church which makes its censers of paper, not metal, cannot burn incense. A religion which, in any form, includes a “peradventure,” has admitted the formula of nature and lost the “amen” of supernatural truth. It is reduced and transposed. Its raptures are but poetry, its dogma but science, its antiquity but pedantry, its forms but formality, its freedom but license, its authority but convention, its zeal but faction, its sobriety but sloth. It cannot admit of enthusiasm, as it cannot generate it in its nobler and more permanent forms, because it can neither balance nor direct it. Such a faith [pg 591] must install reason in the higher place. A church founded on nothing higher must serve, not rule. It will end by worshipping its bondage.
As in theology there is no possibility of separating dogma from dogma, so there is no possibility of separating the religious affections from a reverence for dogmas, if the mind be an inquiring one. What has been called “loyalty to our Lord,” and contrasted with the “dogmatic spirit,” is a sentiment which depends wholly on what we believe concerning him. But to believe him to be God and man involves an immense mass of profound doctrine which may be held implicitly by the many, but which the student must hold explicitly, or be in a condition of doubt. These subtle questions involve metaphysical speculations; and had we to settle them for ourselves, we must all of us have mastered philosophy before we had learned the lore of Christian love. But how many points are there of a different sort which yet must be certain, if our faith is to be certain—points which no man could settle for himself, and as to which no authority save one secure from error could give us rest! Such are the questions as to the mode of administering sacraments; what form of baptism is valid, and what is invalid; the canonicity of the Scriptures, which, if it depend on our individual estimate of historic evidence only, can rise no higher than the level of opinion, and therefore can never afford a basis for divine faith. No reasonable man can suppose that either directly or indirectly he can reach to intuitions on these points. He may say that they are not essential to him personally; but he cannot but suspect that they are essential to the integrity of that whole scheme of theology which, as a whole, is essential to him. A leak in the ship is not less dangerous because low down and out of sight; and the strength of a chain is the strength of its weakest link. When the principle of authority ceased to be held, as a revealed doctrine (the complement of that of personal spiritual discernment), the complete circle of faith was broken, and an element of doubt entered in. The process was unperceived because gradual, the inherited faith concealing long the ravages of innovating opinion. Human faith succeeded also to divine, and simulated it. Science, imagination, enthusiasm in its ever-varying forms, contributed their aid. Protestant churches can hardly now even conceive of an authority acting simply and humbly under divine faith. They can only imagine anathemas as proceeding from passion. But S. Paul and the early church, as well as the Roman Catholic, thought differently.
Another principle lost sight of practically on the Protestant theory of religious knowledge is that it is necessary to hold the Christian faith, not only (1st) in its fulness, and (2d) with certainty, but also (3d) in its purity. Now, whatever truths individual intuitions and studies may bring home to us (legitimately or accidentally), it is certain from experience that they will not exclude many errors, which apparently have the same sanction, and are entertained with the same confidence—nay, are so cherished that if but one be spoken against, the whole system of thought is felt to be endangered. But this confusion of truth and error introduces Babel into the heart of Jerusalem, and erects altars to false gods in [pg 592] the temple of the True. The soul espoused to Christ must exclude his rivals, and preserve ever the unrelaxed girdle of purity in spiritual things. Faith is not only the mother, but the virgin mother, of all perfect belief, devotion, and practice. Error, in the region of faith, is not only hostile but fatal to truth in its spiritual unity. We are assured that “the letter kills,” not merely that it is void; and we know that a little poison may corrupt much food, while a little needful medicine may taste as bitter as poison. Now, that the Bible, by reason of its very excellency, abounds in passages obvious to individual misinterpretation, no candid reader of it or of history will deny. We need, therefore, something which will preserve us from such dangers, as well as from evils of deficiency. Animals are protected from many dangers by the constant presence of overpowering instincts. The soul requires equally the constant guidance of the Holy Spirit. Experience disproves the novel and enthusiastic notion that the Spirit is thus given—viz., as inspiration—to the individual in his isolation. He requires, therefore, the aid of the Spirit, both acting in his soul as vital heat, and also shedding light on him from the church, round whose head the Pentecostal flame ever plays. Within that church which teaches “with authority, and not as the scribes,” a firmament is drawn between matters to be believed de fide and matters of opinion. Errors in theological opinion, recognized as opinion only, are not necessarily more hurtful than errors in science or politics. Let us now glance at the most ordinary form of objection.
So inveterate are traditional habits of thought that we recur to them after their fallaciousness has been ever so clearly pointed out. A wheel of thought moves round in our head, and the old notions recur. What convert, for instance, has not been plagued, while approaching to Catholic convictions, by the reiteration of that thought constantly recurring to his mind, “Is it likely that all England should have been in error for three hundred years?” Though he cannot but feel the weight of the answer, “It is at least more likely than that all Christendom should have been far more deeply steeped in worse errors and corruptions, by their nature affecting individuals as well as the body corporate, for at least twelve hundred years.” It is thus that in the question of the “rule of faith” we recur to the question, “Is it not obvious that the individual mind must lose all freedom and spontaneity, if obliged to measure its movements by an outward authority? Is not such obedience servile, not filial; carnal, not spiritual? Who could move freely, if obliged to walk always with another, though that other were his dearest friend?” Now, far from all this being obvious, it is obviously founded on a misconception of the hypothesis objected to. Why does the soul partake of a higher freedom as it advances in submission to God? How is it that, in the glorified state, perfect freedom exists without the possibility of falling? Because the Spirit that works in the redeemed and regenerate is the Spirit of God himself. Why is it no bondage that our two eyes must, if in a healthy condition, move together? Because the same law acts freely in both. Why is it that a hand that has ceased to obey the brain is called a powerless hand? [pg 593] Because its power proceeds from sympathy with the brain. Now, on the hypothesis of the “visible church,” just such a sympathy, such a law, and such a Spirit work equally and simultaneously in the individual and in the body. To the church the Spirit is given indefectibly, to lead her into “all truth,” even to the “end of the world.” The individual may or may not co-operate with the Spirit; but if he does, he must needs, ex hypothesi, co-operate with the church, and he cannot feel as a bondage what is the law of his life, though the less spiritual part of him may often feel it as a salutary restraint. Rightly to serve is, in things divine, the only possible spiritual, as distinguished from merely natural, freedom. The real question, then, respects, not either the stringency of the law or its character as external law, but its being or not being divine—a rightful authority, not a usurpation.
The place of faith is not determined by controversial or even intellectual needs only. Its functions are innumerable. It is the bond between the race and God. It must affect the whole soul and be the health of every part. It is God's adamant diffused through every region of our being, as the rock on which the church is built extends, in its solidity, throughout and under the whole fabric. Our individual faith may be weak; but it is the nature of faith itself to be infinitely strong; and our faith must so come to us, and so stand towards us, as to admit of its own infinite increase, as well as of its permanence. It must enlighten the mind, erect the will, warm and chasten the heart, live in every affection, kneel in our humility, endure in our patience. It is an armor that covers us wholly, leaving no spot exposed to the flying shafts of an enemy, to whom one spot is as the whole body. Its shield is a mirror in which humanity beholds the whole of its being, individual and social, imaged after the stature of the renewed man. That image is no idol with brazen breast and feet of earth, but the likeness, everywhere glorious, of Him who took our whole nature, and in it was obedient to “his parents” and his country's law, as well as to his Father's will. Faith, in the Protestant acceptation of the word, is unable to discharge for us all these high offices. No Protestant community (and many have been tried) can point to its heroic triumphs, and say, “Behold its fruits.” They have neither converted heathen nations nor retained as much of the faith as they started with on their new career.
The theory of the “Bible interpreted by private judgment” seems, then, to me to have been novel, rash, crude, not sincerely thought out when promulgated—the only position that could affect to justify the revolt from unity, but one not itself justified by the event. My reason, to which rationalism ever appeals, would not have antecedently assured me that a book would have formed even part of a revelation. My reason tells me that if the facts of Christianity be divine, its dogmatic truths divine, and the book which records the facts and announces the truths be divine, it is not unreasonable that the interpreter of that book should be divine. Such is the theory which Rome maintains, but which no one will say that Rome did more than retain, walking thus in the footsteps of the primitive church, and of the general councils. The patriarchal [pg 594] church had no Bible; the Hebrew church but an incomplete canon, added to from time to time. The Christian canon was not compiled for two centuries after Christ; Providence did not allow of its diffusion by printing for fourteen. The Christian world is still, for the most past, unable to read. Most Protestants have therefore ever been compelled to be guided by an authority which, without pretending to confer the spiritual gifts which Rome confers, is exposed to many of the same objections. All religious communities say practically, “Hear me.” One only says, with the apostle, “Hear the church.” One only delivers a distinct and consistent message. One only unites parental authority with maternal solicitude, fear with love, enthusiasm with steadfastness, permanence of faith with progress of defined knowledge, the doctrines with the ethical habits of the early church, the lore of the Fathers with the propagandism of the early missionaries and the courage of the martyrs. It is the church of Him who was singled from his brethren as were Judah, Shem, Seth, and made to be unity, that in his unity all might be one, in one Lord, one faith, and one baptism.
A. de Vere.
November 2, 1851.
Our readers will certainly be thankful to us for giving them the pleasure of perusing the foregoing letter, which is a document of great interest and value for several reasons. It is the work of an author whose prose is only inferior to his poetry. It is a record of the process of reasoning by which one of the many illustrious English converts was aided to make the transition from Anglicanism to the Catholic Church, given in his own language at a time when his thoughts and sentiments about the momentous change were fresh in his memory, and remarkably different from any similar production. The value of such a document, considered in the respect just mentioned, depends on its being given precisely as it was written at the time; and we have been, therefore, scrupulously careful not to change or modify a single sentence, or even a word, in the author's manuscript.
This letter is not, however, merely a psychological and literary curiosity. Though it is the argument, not of a Catholic theologian, but of a man of letters just recently converted to the faith, it is a remarkable presentation of some parts of Catholic doctrine, more particularly of the supernatural certainty of divine faith, and the essential difference of faith from human science or opinion, even when the object of the latter is natural or revealed theology. We think it important, however, to add a short explanation of our own as a safeguard of purely natural certitude. Sound Catholic philosophy establishes the certitude of knowledge received through the senses, the understanding, and the discursive or reasoning operation of the mind upon the concepts apprehended by both those faculties. Physical, metaphysical, and moral demonstration produce, therefore, true science, not mere opinion. The rational proof of the Catholic religion rests on these three, and is sufficient to produce a certain conviction. This is not, however, identical with divine faith. The act of faith is distinct from the merely rational assent of the mind. Yet these two acts may terminate on the same object. One may be [pg 595] convinced, for instance, of the spirituality of the soul, by a metaphysical demonstration, without believing in the divine revelation. If he afterward believes in the revelation, he will have also a divine faith in the spirituality of the soul. One may believe by divine faith that Christ made S. Peter the head of the church, and afterwards acquire an historical certainty of the same truth. We cannot be too careful to maintain the supernatural quality of faith and the superiority of its divine light to the natural light of reason; at the same time, we must be also careful not to weaken or diminish the certainty and the scope of natural knowledge.—Ed. C. W.