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Page 3
Verily, there is but one possible explanation, and that explanation is
furnished us, by the words of the promise made by God-incarnate,
_viz._, "Behold, I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of
the world" (Matt, xxviii. 20). Yes, I, Who am "the true light which
enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world" (John i. 9), "will
abide with you for ever, and will lead you into all truth" (John xvi. 13).
If but few persons, outside the Catholic Church, realise the force and
import of these words, it is because few realise the absolute and
irresistible power of Him Who gave them utterance. With their lips
they profess Christ to be God, but then, strange to relate, they
proceed to reason and to argue, just as though He were merely
man--one, that is to say, Who, when He established His Church, did
not consider nor bear in mind man's weakness and fickleness, and who
possessed no power to see the outcome of His own policy, nor the
difficulties that it would engender, nor the future multiplication of
the faithful, in every part of the world. For, did He know and foresee
all these things, He _must_ have guarded against them; and this they
_practically_ deny, by continuing to associate themselves with
churches where His promises are in no sense fulfilled, and where His
most solemn pledges remain unredeemed. We refer to those churches
wherein there is no recognised infallible authority; in fact, nothing
to protect their subjects from the inroads of the world, and from the
faults and errors inseparable from the exercise of purely human and
fallible reason.
Those, however, who can put aside such false notions, and awaken to
the real facts, will find the truth growing luminous before their
gaze. History constrains them to admit that it was Christ Who
established the Church, with its supreme head, and its various
members. But Christ is verily God; of the same nature, and one with
the Father, and possessing the same divine attributes. Now, since He
is God, there is to Him no future, just as there is no past. To him,
all is equally present. Hence, in establishing a Church, and in
providing it with laws and a constitution, He did this, not
tentatively, not experimentally, not in ignorance of man's needs and
weaknesses, and folly, but with a most perfect foreknowledge of every
circumstance and event, actual and to come. He spoke and ordered and
arranged all things, with His eyes clearly fixed on the most remote
ages, no less than on the present and the actual. _We_ mortals write
history after the characters have already lived and died, and when
nations have already developed and run their course. But with Christ,
the whole history of man, his wars and his conquests, his vices and
his virtues, his religious opinions and doctrines, had been already
written and completed, down to the very last line of the very last
chapter, an eternity before He assumed our nature and founded His
Church. It was with this most intimate knowledge before Him, that He
promised to provide us with a reliable and infallible teacher, who
should safeguard His doctrine, and publish the glad tidings of the
Gospel, throughout all time, even unto the consummation of the world.
Since it is God Who promises, it follows, with all the rigour of
logic, that this fearless Witness and living Teacher must be a _fact_,
not a _figment_; a stupendous reality, not a mere name; One, in a
word, possessing and wielding the self-same authority as Himself, and
to be received and obeyed and accepted as Himself: "Who heareth you
heareth Me" (Luke x. 16).
This teacher was to be a supreme court of appeal, and a tribunal,
before which every case could be tried, and definitely settled, once
for all. And since this tribunal was a divine creation, and invested
by God Himself with supernatural powers for that specific purpose, it
must be fully equipped, and thoroughly competent and equal to its
work. For God always adapts means to ends. Hence it can never
resemble the tribunals existing in man-made churches, which can but
mutter empty phrases, suggest compromises, and clothe thought in
wholly ambiguous language--tribunals that dare not commit themselves
to anything definite and precise. Yea, which utterly fail and break
down just at the critical moment, when men are dividing and
disagreeing among themselves, and most needing a prompt and clear
decision, which may close up the breach and bring them together.
No! The decisions of the authority set up by Christ are in very
truth--just what we expect to find them--_viz._, clear, ringing
and definite. They divide light from darkness, as by a divine hand;
and segregate truth from error, as a shepherd separates the sheep from
the goats.
Christ promised as much as this, and if He keep not His promise, then
He can hold out no claim to be God, for though Heaven and earth may
pass away, God's words shall never pass away. That He did so promise
is quite evident; and may be proved, first, _explicitly_, and from
His own words, and secondly, _implicitly_, from the very necessity of
the case; and from the whole history of religious development.
Cardinal Newman, even before his reception into the Church, was so
fully persuaded of this, that he wrote: "If Christianity is both
social and dogmatic, and intended for all ages, it must, humanly
speaking, have an infallible expounder.... By the Church of England a
hollow uniformity is preferred to an infallible chair; and by the
sects in England an interminable division" (_Develop._, etc., p. 90).
In the Catholic Church alone the need is fully met.
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