In order to show this to you, I must remind you of what I mean by salvation. Put out of your minds that childish idea that salvation is an external, arbitrary reward, given to some men when they die, and denied to others, as a father gives a book or a plaything to an obedient child, and refuses it to a disobedient. Salvation is union with God. We are made for God. That is our high destiny. In God are our life and happiness; and out of God our death and ruin. Salvation is our union with God for all eternity, and, in order to be united to God for all eternity, we must be united to Him here. Our salvation must begin here. Now, we are united to God when our intelligence is united to His intelligence by the knowledge of His truth, and our will united to His will by the practice of His love. When I affirm, then, that the Catholic alone has the means of attaining a security of salvation, I mean that he alone has the certain means of coming to the knowledge of His truth, and the practice of His will.
I say the certain means of coming to the knowledge of His truth, for it is one thing to have a certain knowledge of a thing, and another to have only some ideas about it. We see this difference when we contrast the language of a man who is master of a science with that of one who has only vague notions about it. One possesses his knowledge—knows what he knows—can make use of it; while the other is embarrassed the moment he attempts to use his knowledge—is uncertain whether he is right or wrong—is driven to guesses and conjectures. In the same way, in religion, it is one thing to have convictions more or less deep—opinions more or less probable, to be acquainted with its history and able to talk about it—and quite another to have certainty in religion, to know that one is right. This is the assurance I claim as the special possession of the Catholic. There can be no doubt that Catholics do, in point of fact, show a much deeper conviction of the truth of their religion than Protestants. This is a matter of common observation, and the proofs of it are on every side. Officers who come back from the army tell how struck they have been with the fact that the Catholic soldiers believe their religion and carry it with them to the camp. Proselyting societies make frequent confession of the difficulty they find in undermining the faith even of ignorant and needy Catholics. Those who have experience at death-beds, know that faith is found sometimes surviving almost every other good principle, and making a return to God possible. Those who are familiar with the history of the Church know that this faith is strong enough to bear the severest tests which can be applied to it; that it has often led men to despise what the world most esteems—wealth, pleasures, honor; that it sends the missionary to heathen countries without a regret for the home and the native land he leaves behind him; that, in fine, it has often led men in times past, and still at this day leads them joyfully to the rack, the stake, and the scaffold. Now, whence comes this deep and fixed certainty in religion? Is it a mere prejudice that melts before investigation? Is it a stupid fanaticism? Or has it a reasonable basis, and are its foundations deep in the laws of the human mind? I answer, Catholics have this undoubting conviction on the principle of faith in an infallible authority. There are but two principles of Christian belief, when we come to the bottom of the matter. One is the Protestant principle, viz.: that each one is to settle his faith for himself, by a study of the clear records of Christianity. The other is the Catholic principle, viz.: that each one is to receive his faith from an infallible authority. I feel as if I ought to pause here for a while to explain to you what is meant by this principle, for there exists in regard to it in some minds a misconception which does us the grossest injustice. Some persons imagine that our creed is manufactured for us by the Pope and the Bishops; that whatever they may think right and good they may decree, and forthwith we are bound to believe it. But this is an enormous mistake. The authority to which I submit myself is something far more august. It lies behind Pope and Bishop, and they must bow to it as well as I. The Pope and the Bishops are the organs of this authority, not its sources. When we speak of learning from an infallible authority, we mean that a man is to find out the truth by putting his intelligence in communication with that living stream of truth that flows down through the channel of tradition, that living word of God, that public preaching of the truth in the true Church, begun by the Apostles, carried on by their successors, confessed by so many people, recorded in so many monuments, adorned by so many sacrifices, attested by so many miracles. Unquestionably, this was the mode in which men were expected to learn the truth in apostolic days. It would not have been of the least avail for a man to have said to the Apostles that his convictions differed from theirs. He would have been instantly regarded as in error. "We are of God," says St. John; "he that is of God, heareth us; he that is not of God, heareth not us. By this shall ye know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error." [Footnote 168]
[Footnote 168: I St. John iv. 6.]
Nor is there the least intimation in the New Testament that this principle was to be departed from after the death of the Apostles. On the contrary, we find that the Apostles ordained others, and communicated to them their doctrine and authority, that they might go on and preach just as they had done. And we find in the early Church that whenever a dispute arose about doctrine it was settled on the same principle, viz.: by an appeal to the tradition of the churches that had been founded by the Apostles. Thus, when a heresy arose in the second century, Tertullian confronts it by bidding them compare their doctrine with that of the Apostolic Churches: "If thou art in Achaia," he says, "thou hast Corinth; if thou art near Macedonia, thou hast Philippi; if thou art in Italy, thou hast Rome. Happy Church! to which the Apostles bequeathed not only their blood, but all their doctrines. See what she has learned, see what she has taught." [Footnote 169]
[Footnote 169: Adv. Præscr. Hær. n. 32-6.]
Such is the principle on which the Catholic Church acts to this day. Now, while the Protestant principle of private judgment in its own nature cannot lead to certainty, while in point of fact it has led only to endless dispute, until in our own day it has ended by bringing those Divine Records, which it began by exalting so highly, into doubt and contempt; the Catholic principle, which, I have stated, is the principle of tradition, is adapted to give a complete and a reasonable certainty and assurance. The reasons why this public tradition of the living Church has this power are manifold. They are in part natural, and in part supernatural—universal consent, internal consistency, Divine Attestation, the Warrant and Promise of Christ; all of which are so well summed up by St. Augustine, in that famous letter of his to the Manichees: "I am kept in the Catholic Church," he says, "by the consent of peoples and nations. By an authority begun with miracles, nourished by hope, increased by charity, confirmed by antiquity. By the succession of priests from the chair of St. Peter the Apostle—to whom our Lord after His resurrection gave His sheep to be fed—down to the present Bishop. In fine, by that very name of Catholic, which this Church alone has held possession of; so that though heretics would fain have called themselves Catholics, yet to the inquiry of a stranger, 'Where is the meeting of the Catholic Church held?' no one of them would dare to point to his own basilica." [Footnote 170]
[Footnote 170: Con. Ep. Manich. i. 5. 6.]
The conviction which such considerations produce is so deep that a Catholic rests in it with the most undoubting certainty. He can bear to look into his belief, to examine its grounds; he feels it is a venerable belief. He says it is impossible that God would allow error to wear so many marks of truth. To imagine it, would be to impugn His Truth, His Justice, His Power, His Goodness. And therefore, our belief in the Catholic religion is only another form of our belief in God. The foundation of that belief is deep and abiding, for it is the Eternal Throne of God. That desire for truth which is implanted in man's nature is not, then, given only to be baffled and disappointed—here is its fulfilment. Man is not raised to a participation in Christ of the Divine Nature, to be left in doubt of the most essential truths. To the Catholic are fulfilled those pleasant words of Christ: "I will not now call you servants, for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth; but have called you friends, because all things, whatsoever I have heard from my Father, I have made known to you." [Footnote 171]
[Footnote 171: St. John xv. 15.]
But some one may make an objection to my doctrine that certainty about truth is the result only of the Catholic principle of faith, and say: "You do not mean to assert that Protestants have no faith at all?" A Protestant may say to me: "I acknowledge that we have among us a great deal of disunion, and a great deal of doubt, but after all there are some things that are believed by some of us, that are believed without doubt, and you will not deny it." No, I will not deny it. I am glad to think that it is true. But how did you come by that belief? You did not come by it on the principle of Protestantism. The truth is, that principle never has been, and never can be carried out. Thank God, it is so. Utter unbelief would be the consequence. You have a child—a child that you love dearly. Will you wait, as your Protestantism requires you to do, till he is grown up, for him to form his religious convictions? No; if you love him, you will not. Your heart will teach you a better wisdom. You will tell him about God, you will tell him Who Christ is, and what He has done for him. You will tell him these things not doubtingly, not as if he was to suspend his judgment on them, but as true, and as to be believed then and there. And as he looks up at you out of his trusting eyes, he believes you. But how does he believe you? On the principle of a Protestant, or a Catholic? On the principle of private judgment, or on faith in an infallible authority? Surely it is as a Catholic he believes? You represent to him the Great Teacher, and his childish soul, in listening to you, hears the voice of God, performs a great act of religion, and does his first act of homage to Truth. His nature prompts him to believe you. Perhaps he is baptized, and then there is a grace in his heart which secretly inclines him the more to credit you, and he believes without doubting. He is a Catholic. Yes, my brethren, there is many a child of Protestant parents who is a Catholic—a Catholic, that is, in all but the name, and the fulness of instruction, and the richness of privilege. He may grow up in this way, perhaps continue all his life in this childish faith and trust. I will not say it may not be so. But let his reason fully awaken. Let him honestly go down to the foundation of his faith and see on what it rests, and then let him remain a Protestant, and retain his undoubting assurance if he can. He cannot—a crisis in his history has come. The sun has arisen with its living heat. The flower begins to wither. It must be transplanted or it will die. One of three things will happen: either the man, finding that he has not learned all that the Great Teacher has revealed, will go on to accept the rest and will become a Catholic; or he will learn to doubt what he has received already and become a sceptic; or he will stick to the creed he has received from his fathers or picked up for himself, and doggedly refuse to add to it, thus rendering himself at the same moment amenable in the Court of Reason for unreasonableness in what he holds, and in the Court of Faith for unbelief in what he rejects. So true it is that all the faith there is in the world is naturally allied to Catholicity. If men were perfectly reasonable and consistent, there would be only two parties in the religious world. Protestantism would disappear. On the one side would be faith, certainty, Catholicity; on the other, doubt and unbelief.