I answer, the Holy Ghost leads us into all truth necessary to our salvation by the public preaching of the Word of God. If we examine our Lord's words attentively, we shall be led to the conclusion that the ministry of the Holy Ghost to which He alludes is a public ministry. His own ministry was a public one, and in promising that the Holy Ghost should carry it on and complete it, He leads us to anticipate that the ministry of the Holy Ghost would also be public. And His own subsequent language shows that this is really so, and acquaints us with the way in which this ministry is to be exercised. Just before our Lord's Ascension He met the Apostles on a mountain in Galilee, and said to them: "All power is given to Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." [Footnote 116] August and extensive as this commission was, it did not by itself qualify the Apostles for their great work. They were to wait in Jerusalem "till they were endued with power from on high." This "power" was the Holy Ghost which actually did descend on them at the feast of Pentecost. Here we find a company of men commissioned by Christ to teach the world in His name, and empowered by the Holy Ghost for that purpose. We find these men afterward everywhere claiming to be the organs of the Holy Ghost. Thus, at the council of Jerusalem, they did not hesitate to publish their decrees with this preface: "It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us." [Footnote 117] And St. Paul tells the bishops of Ephesus, that they were placed over the Church "by the Holy Ghost." [Footnote 118]
[Footnote 116: St. Matt. xxviii. 18-20.]
[Footnote 117: Acts xv. 28.]
[Footnote 118: Acts xx. 28.]
Now, who does not see here the realization and fulfilment of the great promise of Christ which I have quoted as my text? That teaching of the Holy Ghost which was to follow His, which was to bring all things to remembrance which He had said, which was to abide forever, and which was to make known all necessary truth, was the teaching of the Apostles and their successors. It is the teaching of the Holy Ghost, because the Holy Ghost moves them to preach, furnishes them with the rule of their doctrine, and gives them their warrant and authority. In this sense it is that our Lord's promise is to be understood. It is a promise that reaches to all time. It concerns us here and now. It assures us that at this day, far removed as we are from the times of Christ, across so many centuries, the Holy Ghost through the agency of the Church still brings to us the echoes of His words. He does this in the most solemn and authoritative way by those great decisions of the Church to which He sets the seal of His Infallibility; but he does it in less solemnity, less authoritatively, but more frequently, by the preaching of each individual priest. It is for this end that the priest is ordained. He is consecrated and set apart, not merely to say Mass, not merely to receive the confessions of penitent sinners and absolve them, but to publish the Word of God; and He is empowered by the Holy Ghost for this very purpose. The Christian preacher is no mere lecturer, but an authorized agent and messenger of God, to deliver to the people the will of God. It is chiefly by the ordinance of preaching, in its various forms, that the Holy Ghost carries on the work of instructing men's faith, and regulating their morals.
And here, I think, is to be found the real answer to a misconception of our principles so common among Protestants. It is very commonly said and believed that the Catholic Church wishes to keep the people in ignorance of the Scriptures. Now, this is not true. The Church does not wish to keep the Scriptures from the people. On the contrary, in all cases in which they are likely to prove beneficial she approves and encourages their use; but she does not regard the reading of the Scriptures as the necessary, or even as the ordinary mode of familiarizing the people with the Word of God. Thousands have gone to heaven who never read one page of the Bible. St. Irenæus instances whole nations who professed and practised Christianity in entire ignorance of the Divine Records. How many people in every generation are unable to read. Now, God has not made a twofold system of salvation; one for the ignorant and one for the educated. No: according to the Catholic idea, for rich and poor, for learned and unlearned alike, there is one way of truth—the living voice of the preacher. This is God's way. This is the Voice of the Holy Ghost. This is the publication of the Word of God. This is the sword of the Spirit. The decree has never been revoked: "The priest's lips shall keep knowledge; and the people shall seek the law at his mouth; because he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts." [Footnote 119]
[Footnote 119: Mal. ii. 7.]
But an objection may be drawn against this high view of the ordinance of preaching, from the infirmities of the preacher himself. It may be said: You tell us that the Holy Ghost speaks by the voice of the preacher, yet the preacher is but a fallible man, ignorant of many things, liable to be deceived himself, not free from passions which may affect his judgment. May he not falsify his message? May He not dishonor it? I do not deny the fact on which this objection is founded. Undoubtedly, the preacher may be unfaithful in the delivery of his message. In the Catholic Church, however, the watchfulness of discipline, and the general acquaintance on the part of the people with the standards of faith and practice, will prevent any very serious error finding its way into the public teaching of the priest. Who supposes, for instance, that any Catholic congregation would tolerate from the pulpit a denial of Transubstantiation, or the true Divinity of our Lord, or the necessity of good works? But within a certain limit, no doubt, there may be much imperfection in the preacher, much that detracts from the purity, the majesty, and the dignity of the Word of God. What then? I affirm, nevertheless, that preaching is the great instrument of the Holy Ghost for the conversion of souls. Strange, that we should start back at every new manifestation of a law that goes all through Christianity, and even through all the arrangements of the natural world. In every department of human life, God makes man His representative—man fallible and weak. The judge on the bench represents God's Wisdom and Equity, though his decisions are often far enough from that Divine pattern. The magistrate represents God's authority, though in his hands that authority is sometimes made the warrant for tyranny and oppression. So, in like manner, the preacher represents the Holy Ghost, though he does not always represent Him worthily either in manner or matter.
It is part of a plan. He who chooses man, sinful like ourselves, and encompassed with infirmities, to convey His pardon to the guilty, chooses as the organ of the Eternal Wisdom, "holy, one, manifold, subtle, eloquent, undefiled, having all power, overseeing all things, the Brightness of Eternal Light, the unspotted mirror of God's Majesty [Footnote 120] —man, with stammering lips, with a feeble intellect and an impure heart.
[Footnote 120: Wisd. vii. 22-26.]