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.