religion, and one which is expressly received, repeated, and confirmed, by additional sanctions, in the New Law, which must have been handed down by secret teaching and tradition. So true is this, that the Sadducees, followed in later times by the Karaites, formed a sect among the Jews, who rejected traditional doctrines, and consequently the resurrection of the dead, and the existence of a spiritual soul in men.* And thus we find St. Paul join himself to the Pharisees, who held the two, not as to a sect, but as to the true orthodox portion of the Jewish Church. "I am a Pharisee, the son of Pharisees: concerning the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question. For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit; but the Pharisees confess both."t And as such our Saviour acknowledges them; although he clearly distinguishes between their authority in teaching dogma, and their corruptions in matters of practical morality, and bases the former on their descent, as teachers, from the legislator Moses.‡ When our Saviour deduces the sublime doctrine of a future resurrection, from the Almighty's being styled the God of Abraham and of Jacob—the God not of the dead, but of the living; it is, perhaps, difficult to discover the link between these two members of the argument. For how can the resurrection be proved from God's calling himself the God of Abraham? But by knowing the Jewish forms of reasoning, and the manner in which they connect the two dogmas of the soul's survival, and the body's resurrection, we understand how his hearers were satisfied by the argument.§ In the same way, our Saviour tells us that Moses bore testimony of him; and in conversing with his two disciples on the road to Emmaus, quoted the authority of Moses for the necessity of his suffering, and so entering into glory;|| and yet you will in vain search the books of Moses to discover this import * See Molitor, tom. i. cap. 3. Acts xxiii. 5-8; xxvi. 5. Mat. xxiii. 8. Comp. Mat. xxii. 23. Luke xxiv. 26. ant dogma, of the necessity of the Messiah's dying to redeem his people. Where, then, had these points been preserved, save in the traditions of the Jews, as may be proved from their later works? Another example may be drawn from the New Testament. When our Saviour proposed to Nicodemus the doctrine of a spiritual birth, or regeneration, and he truly or affectedly understood it not, he reproved him in these words, "Art thou a master in Israel, and knowest not these things?"* What does this rebuke imply, but that a teacher among the Jews ought to have been acquainted with this important doctrine, from his very office as a teacher? Yet tell me where it is ever taught in the old law, or whence could he have possessed it, except from the traditional lore preserved among the priests and learned? In the later writings of the Jews, we observe clear manifestations of their belief in the Trinity, and in the mystery of the Incarnation, and this couched in the very terms made use of by St John. For in the earliest uninspired writings of the Jews, we have the Word of God spoken of as something co-equal and co-existing with Him,† and yet scarcely a trace of such doctrines is to be found in the written law, although they belong not to natural but to revealed religion. They must therefore have been delivered as a deposit into the hands of the priesthood, and by them preserved inviolate to the time of Christ. I need hardly add, that the Jews themselves acknowledge this delivery, by tradition, of a secret and more important doctrine. The learned author to whom I refer puts this quite out of doubt and I will content myself with saying, that in the first page of one of their most esteemed and most ancient treatises, which, at least in Italy, is put into the hands of Jewish children for elementary education, it is expressly stated that Moses re John iii. 11. † In the Targumim or Chaldee paraphrases, wherever God is said to speak ithin himself, this is rendered by "God said to his Word." ceived on Sinai, besides the written, an oral and traditional revelation, which he delivered to the priests.* I have brought these instances, by way of illustration, to show what a strong class of arguments it must require to prove that rule of faith which excludes traditional teaching; because we see that, even when the written law is expressly enjoined, it is far from excluding the existence of an unwritten law; yea, and of one to which is committed the exclusive preservation of most important doctrines. In like manner, therefore, when we come to examine authorities, we shall find that it requires reasons exceedingly strong to prove, not merely that the Scripture is the rule of faith, but that it is an allsufficient the exclusive rule; and however strong the terms may otherwise be, we cannot easily admit them to be exclusive of that other traditional teaching, even though backed by a formal command to have a written code. II. Such, my brethren, is the simple and usual train of argument whereby we arrive at the possession of the Holy Scriptures, and of its entire canon and inspiration. But you will say, What have we gained, and in what is our con dition better than that of others? Even here is a train of argument requiring considerable investigation; by it we are equally left to enquire into the authenticity of the sacred books, and the faith we should put in the circumstances they relate; because we have first to learn what Christ taught regarding his Church. Another explanation must therefore be made, of the manner in which our rule is applicable; and here the doctrine of the Catholic Church is such as obviously to remove these difficulties, and make the rule one of the simplest acceptance, and yet able to bear the investigation of the most learned. For the Catholic Church teaches and believes—(I beg to observe that I am not proving our doctrines, but only stating them, that you may understand what I shall hereafter by argument establish)-that faith is not the production of *Pirke Aboth. man's ingenuity, not the result of his study or investigation, but a virtue essentially infused by God in baptism; and such must be, more or less, the belief of every Church that adopts the practice of infant baptism. True, the article of the Church of England regarding this sacrament, which says that by baptism "faith is confirmed and grace increased,” would seem to suppose that faith exists in the soul before baptism is administered; but however that anomaly has to be explained, it is certain that the very idea of infant baptism, as a sacrament, supposes a living and vivifying principle communicated in it—that is, a communication to the person so baptized of the faith of the Church into which he is admitted. And therefore, assuming faith to be a principle infused by God, it follows that, in a soul purged of sin, and adorned by him with the graces given in baptism, that virtue becomes an active and living principle, and ready, on the presentation of its proper object, to come into complete and perfect action. The moment, therefore, that the doctrines of religion are proposed, and the understanding, now able to apprehend the truths revealed by God, is presented with them, no matter in what order, or by what means, provided the doctrines are true, there is a proper object presented to the action of that virtue; the two necessary elements are brought together the actual truth and the faculty or virtue which God has given us for its apprehension: and the consequence is, that truth is believed on substantial grounds, and under the influence of a living and heavenly principle. Whereas, if we admit the supposition that no man has a right to believe anything but that which he has himself investigated, and of whose truth he is personally satisfied, we must presume that, before the first act of faith there existed an interval of infidelity positive or negative, during which fundamental truth, not having been discovered, was consequently not believed. This simple process allows the child and the most illiterate to perform an act of faith grounded on proper motives. We are subsequently led by the Church to the full knowledge of the grounds and motives of our belief; we are encouraged to exercise our abilities, research, and learning, in demonstrating and confirming, in every way we can, the doctrines which it teaches, and which that preliminary instruction had brought us to believe. And thus, as I before remarked, while by its simplicity it is adapted to the weakest and lowest, it leaves room for the exercise of the faculties of the most able and learned men. III. This may suffice as to the simplicity of the principle in its application; a few words more will prove its adequacy to its natural ends. I observed, when we last met, that the end of every rule and law, and consequently of every rule of faith, was to bring men into a unity of principle and action. I showed you that the rule proposed by others is proved by experience to lead to exactly opposite results; in other words, that it removes men farther from that union, towards which it must be intended to bring them; for it leads them to the most contradictory opinions, professing to be supported and proved by precisely the same principle of faith. But now if you will only examine, in its action, the principle which the Catholic Church admits, you will see that it is fully equal to those objects for which the rule was given: inasmuch as its necessary tendency is to bring all the opinions and understandings of men into the most perfect unity, and to the adoption of one only creed. For, the moment any Catholic doubts, not alone the principle of his faith, but any one of those doctrines which are thereon based-the moment he allows himself to call in question any of the dogmas which the Catholic Church teaches as having been handed down within her-that moment the Church conceives him to have virtually abandoned all connexion with her. For she exacts such implicit obedience, that if any member, however valuable, however he may have devoted his early talents to the illustration of her doctrines, fall away from his belief in any one point, he is cut off without reserve; and we have, in our own times, seen striking and awful instances of this fact. But, my brethren, does not this seem tyrannical?—Is it not |