That the Church was infallible in the Apostolic age is denied by no Christian. We never question the truth of the Apostles' declarations;[114] they were, in fact, the only authority in the Church for the first century. The New Testament was not completed till the close of the first century. There is no just ground for denying to the Apostolic teachers of the nineteenth century in which we live a prerogative clearly possessed by those of the first, especially as the Divine Word nowhere intimates that this unerring guidance was to die with the Apostles. On the contrary, as the Apostles transmitted to their successors their power to preach, to baptize, to ordain, to confirm, [pg 066] etc., they must also have handed down to them the no less essential gift of infallibility.
God loves us as much as He loved the primitive Christians; Christ died for us as well as for them and we have as much need of unerring teachers as they had.
It will not suffice to tell me: “We have an infallible Scripture as a substitute for an infallible apostolate of the first century,” for an infallible book is of no use to me without an infallible interpreter, as the history of Protestantism too clearly demonstrates.
But besides these presumptive arguments, we have positive evidence from Scripture that the Church cannot err in her teachings. Our blessed Lord, in constituting St. Peter Prince of His Apostles, says to him: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”[115] Christ makes here a solemn prediction that no error shall ever invade His Church, and if she fell into error the gates of hell have certainly prevailed against her.
The Reformers of the sixteenth century affirm that the Church did fall into error; that the gates of hell did prevail against her; that from the sixth to the sixteenth century she was a sink of iniquity. The Book of Homilies of the Church of England says that the Church “lay buried in damnable idolatry for eight hundred years or more.” The personal veracity of our Savior and of the Reformers is here at issue, for our Lord makes a statement which they contradict. Who is to be believed, Jesus or the Reformers?
If the prediction of our Savior about the preservation of His Church from error be false, then [pg 067] Jesus Christ is not God, since God cannot lie. He is not even a prophet, since He predicted falsehood. Nay, He is an impostor, and all Christianity is a miserable failure and a huge deception, since it rests on a false Prophet.
But if Jesus predicted the truth when He declared that the gates of hell should not prevail against His Church—and who dare deny it?—then the Church never has and never could have fallen from the truth; then the Catholic Church is infallible, for she alone claims that prerogative, and she is the only Church that is acknowledged to have existed from the beginning. Truly is Jesus that wise Architect mentioned in the Gospel, “who built his house upon a rock; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock.”[116]
Jesus sends forth the Apostles with plenipotentiary powers to preach the Gospel. “As the Father,” He says, “hath sent Me, I also send you.”[117] “Going therefore, teach all nations, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.”[118] “Preach the Gospel to every creature.”[119] “Ye shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth.”[120]
This commission evidently applies not to the Apostles only, but also to their successors, to the end of time, since it was utterly impossible for the Apostles personally to preach to the whole world.
Not only does our Lord empower His Apostles to preach the Gospel, but He commands, and under the most severe penalties, those to whom they [pg 068] preach to listen and obey. “Whosoever will not receive you, nor hear your words, going forth from that house or city, shake the dust from your feet. Amen, I say to you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment than for that city.”[121] “If he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican.”[122] “He that believeth shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be condemned.”[123] “He that heareth you heareth Me; he that despiseth you despiseth Me; and he that despiseth Me despiseth Him that sent Me.”[124]