The latter has acknowledged himself, that there must be heresies in a church, perpetually guided by the most high. This prophecy has been verified in the Christian religion, which from its foundation has been incessantly agitated by quarrels, divisions, animosities, troubles, and paroxysms of fury mat would induce a belief, that the gospel was given to nations only to excite in them, fermentations unknown to Paganism, and show them to what a degree of madness credulity could lead.
The writings of Paul especially have furnished in all ages ample matter, for disputes to the Christian doctors. The obscure dogmas they contain, have of necessity been diversely understood by profound dreamers, who have passed their time in meditation. Each pretended to have discovered the true sense of this infallible and divinely inspired doctor. Each found in his writings a confirmation of his own sentiments. Works filled with contradiction continually gave rise to parties the most opposite to each other, and virulently bent upon mutual destruction. The authority of St. Paul was opposed to himself, and in the impossibility of deciding upon questions totally out of the power of reason to discuss, recourse was had to violence, and the strongest always made the weak feel, that they alone comprehended the true sense of the great Apostle. They disputed continually on predestination, on grace, and on the liberty of man; they understood neither themselves nor St. Paul. The most headstrong, the most wicked, and the most powerful, enforced their opinions as the only ones which the Holy Ghost had dictated.
To conclude, the incredulous, are not those, who alone find the writings of Paul obscure and unintelligible, as we have seen in the the case of St. Peter already quoted. If this prince of the Apostles founded difficulties in the work of St. Paul, what shall we think of the presumption of modern commentators when they pretend to explain to us, the enigmatical and confused passages that we meet with in the epistles of this doctor of the Gentiles.
CHAPTER XXI. Of the Holy Ghost, and Divine Inspiration
It would however have been wiser in the first instance to examine into the degree of confidence due to the real or pretended writings of this wonderful man, whose history we have been developing. Before disputing it would have been better to have been certain of the authority of an Apostle whose works appear to us infallible only on his own word, or on that of the written to whom we owe the Acts of the Apostles. In fact we are told that St. Paul was inspired by the Holy Ghost. But what is the Holy Ghost? How can it inspire a man? What certainty have we that it has ever inspired anyone? By what signs shall we distinguish these invisible inspirations? As it is upon these inspirations only that the Christian religion is established, these questions are well worth the trouble of being discussed.
There is no mention made of the Holy Ghost in the Old Testament; there is mention made of the spirit of the Lord, which possessed, or resided in the prophets, and other holy personages charged with speaking to the Jewish people; but in no place of the Old Testament is the Holy Ghost announced as a being distinct from the Divinity, it is only in the New Testament that we find this metaphysical being deified, or this divine breath personified. In fact it is only in the history of Jesus Christ, that the Holy Ghost begins to perform, a part; we there find him commissioned to overshadow Mary, and produce the savour of the world, who was, as we are told, begotten by the operation of the Holy Ghost.
This same Holy Ghost descended in the form of a dove upon Jesus Christ at the moment of his baptism in the river Jordan by John the Baptist. In the Gospel according to St. John, the author of which appears to have drawn his ideas from the platonic philosophy, there is much talk of the Holy Ghost which is never defined. Jesus promises to send him to the disciples when he himself shall have left them. This spirit is described under term of the Paraclete or Comforter. Jesus assures them that he proceeded from the father, and that he will send him on the part of the father, to bear witness of him Jesus. Further on he promises them, that when this spirit shall come, he shall guide them into all truth.
According to the promise of Jesus, this comforter did in fact descend upon the Apostles at the feast of Pentecost, see Acts ari. ver. 2, 3, 13. Many were astonished at the prodigy there related, but it seems not to have convinced others, who had probably less faith than the first. These sceptics pretended that the inspired Apostles were drunken with new wine. But Peter filled with the spirit, made them a long prophetic harangue; which, according to the author of the Acts, produced a great effect upon many of his hearers, who were converted upon the spot.
In consequence of the descent of the Holy Ghost, the Apostles received the power, not only of speaking divers tongues, but likewise of driving out devils and performing miracles. However we do not find by their history, though written by one favourable to their cause, that the Holy Ghost gave them the power to cast out the demon of incredulity, especially from the minds of the Jews; these resisted constantly the Holy Ghost and made those who said they were filled with it, to suffer cruel treatment.