perfect system adopted by God in his communications with man, to show you what would be naturally and necessarily required to give at once consistency and perfect beauty to the course which he had commenced; to show you what would be necessary to give solidity and reality to the typical and symbolical method pursued of old. I endeavoured, also, with the clear and express words of prophecy, to construct, as it were, even before its appearance, that fabric of religion which the Son of God was to come down from heaven to establish; and then, unfolding before you the sacred volume, I endeavoured, to the best of my power, to point out the exact analogies and correspondencies of the two; to show how that which had been most beautifully foreshown had been yet more beautifully fulfilled; to show how, in the New Testament, are found precisely instituted, every thing which was foretold, which was foreshown in the old law; so that I might say, that it would be infinitely impossible to conceive any other system, but that which the Catholic church adopts and maintains, equal to the task of fulfilling either the prophecies of the Old Testament, or the institutions of the New.

Having thus, therefore, shown you what it was that was placed in the apostles' hands; what were the commissions that were intrusted to their faithful duty; what was the groundwork upon which they were to erect the church of Christ, it must, I am sure, appear to you, almost a needless task, to ascertain how far these faithful followers, and dutiful disciples, carried into execution the plan which was committed to them for that purpose.

But still, my brethren, it must be interesting, and it must be useful too, to follow the same course as we have begun, and still going forward, simply, as it were, in an historical investigation, to see the full and final completion of that which we have seen both foretold and instituted; and to trace, in the conduct of the apostles, and those who have succeeded them, the necessity of adopting, as the only means of interpreting their conduct, the existence of that rule of faith from their times which the Catholic church maintains at present; and such, therefore, is the distinct inquiry to which I am to conduct you this evening; an inquiry, involving simply, the statement of a few historical facts, which I shall be careful to support by what I must consider incontestible authority; and which will, indeed, be based upon such admitted grounds as, I trust, will leave no room for cavil or objection.

Christ then, my brethren, to complete the work which he before began, gave to his apostles a commission to go forth and preach his gospel to all nations, with an injunction to "teach them all things whatsoever he had commanded;" and with a promise that he himself would assist them, and those that succeeded them, in their ministry until the end of time; *such a promise as we saw by comparing these words of the New Testa

ment with other passages of Scripture, has left no room to deny that thereby was guaranteed the preservation of God's entire and complete truth in the church of Christ until the end of time.

In explaining the grounds of the Catholic rule of faith, I dilated chiefly upon this, and upon several other passages which expressly regarded the supernatural assistance of God towards preserving his church from error; but I felt then, and I feel as yet, that I was far from doing full and ample justice to my subject, nor can I even now. From the course I have marked out, and which I must necessarily pursue, I must even now pass over a great deal of strong confirmatory matter, which should justly have come in to complete the view which I gave you in my last discourse. I should, for instance, have dwelt upon those different commissions which our blessed Saviour gave to his apostles, where he gave them the commission to be the instructors of his flock, where he gave them, under different symbols, authority and power, where he gave them the keys of power, the power of binding and losing; all which are expressions, as you may perhaps be aware, which are in occasional use, and are indicative of the collation of great and absolute power. I might have entered into the consideration of how this principle of authority, not only seems the basis and the groundwork of the church, but pervades, as it were, its minor departments, and seems to descend in a constant scale of gradation even to its most inferior orders-how even any single member that is refractory, is to be subjugated to the authority of the church, exercised through its smaller divisions; and above all, I should have dwelt at full length upon those important passages where the supreme authority is given to one, and where the very basis and foundation-stone of church authority is laid. But this, I before intimated, will become hereafter the subject of a particular discourse. I simply mention these facts to show how much more the argument which I have laid before you might have been dilated.

But at present I must recall to your mind one or two texts which were simply hinted at, and to which I merely wish to recall your attention for a moment. I mean those different passages in which Christ so manifestly transfers his own authority to his apostles; where he told them that even as his Father had sent him, so also he sent them; when he told them that all power was given them; that he that heard them, heard him, and he that despised them despised him, and they that despised him despised him that sent him. For so, there can be no doubt that the apostles knew and fully understood, that he had the authority and sanction of God—the authority of God to teach and to enforce his doctrines -and the sanction, not only of his Father, but of his own divine nature to all that he taught. Assuredly, when they found themselves, as it were, constituted in his place, left manifestly as his vicegerents on

earth, with the full deposit of that authority which he brought down from heaven in their hands, and when they found themselves sent forth with this in their hands, to preach the gospel with power and authority, assuredly they must have felt that it was as men having authority that they were to teach, and that they were to demand and to exact the homage of men's individual reason to their superior, and divinely-authorized instructions.

How, therefore, did the apostles go forth? What was the principle on which they conducted their instructions?

In the first place, we do not find that they, upon any occasion, suggested the necessity of an individual examination of the doctrines of Christianity. We find that they endeavoured to narrow its proofs as much as possible, that they reduced them to the evidence, for instance, of one single miracle, and that that miracle was to be received upon their testimony. We find that, for instance, the doctrines of Christianity were made to rest upon that of the resurrection of Christ; and we find that they were content with bearing witness, as having themselves seen Christ after he arose from the dead; and therefore you may say, that the miracles which they wrought, were the motives that made the persons who heard them believe their testimony. But it is not less true, that the foundation upon which their belief was to rest, was really the authority with which they proved themselves, by these miracles, empowered to teach.

It is necessary to retain a distinct idea of some observations which I laid down in my first opening discourse upon this important subject; for although, no doubt, a great many of the first believers were brought to give credence to the preaching of the apostles in consequence of the miracles which they wrought, yet it is not less true, that their faith was not to be built upon these miracles, but upon their declaration of the doctrines of Christianity. We find that, upon their going forth to preach the gospel, there is not, for one moment, the slightest insinuation that there was a book to be examined by all Christians upon which alone they were to ground their faith. We find them, when addressing the Jews, indeed, appealing to the books of the Old Testament, inasmuch as the Old Testament being common and admitted ground, they could justly reason upon it. We find them appealing to the Old Testament, also, because therein was a truth, a partial truth, admitted by the Jews, which necessarily required the gospel for its completion; and therefore they had, as it were, the introduction there, and the preparation for all the doctrines which Christianity delivered. But we never find the slightest intimation upon the necessity of these different facts regarding the life of Christ, or the different doctrines which he taught, being committed to writing, and these writings entrusted to the individual examination of the faithful. Instead of this, we discover a

much more important element-and that is, that, wherever they went, they constituted persons to superintend the different flocks, or congregations which they formed; and nothing could be more manifest, than that it was the intention that these persons should rule by their authority; that they should not allow themselves to be despised, even on account of their youth; that to them was entrusted the power of receiving accusations, even against the presbyters, or priests; so that the rule was, even so early, laid down as to the number of witnesses to be received against persons of such a character. In other words, we find, from the very beginning, all the ground-work of the system based essentially upon the doctrine of authority, and upon that of authoritative teaching.

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Not even so content, my brethren, we find that they gave the most minute instructions to these individuals and to the churches; not, indeed, carefully to read the words of Scripture when they should be written for there is not a hint that they were ever to be recorded (I speak, of course, of the New Testament)—but they were to be careful to preserve the doctrines which were given into their hands. St. Paul, addressing his faithful disciple, said, "O Timothy, keep these things which have been committed to thy charge, avoiding the profane novelties of words, and opposition of knowledge, falsely so called ;" that is o say, "Remember those doctrines which I have given to you, which may easily be perverted in words; take care even to retain the very terms wherein these doctrines have been delivered; lest, by the opposition of false knowledge" in which words St. Paul is hinting at the earliest errors that crept into the church-" beware, therefore, lest any thing should be changed even in an expression wherein faith is contained." Now, had his idea been, that the whole of religion was to have been recorded in a book, and that the words of that book were to be the only text on which religion was to be grounded, assuredly it could not have been necessary to inculcate with such care this preservation of doctrine, even as the words delivered in charge to the bishops of the church—not to the flock, not to the congregation, nor to each member of it, but to him who was to render an account to God for their souls. And, again, he exhorted him to keep the form even of sound words. He exhorts him, that what he had heard of him before many witnesses, to deliver, giving it in charge to faithful persons who might themselves be competent to teach it to others. And is not this, therefore, the foundation of ecclesiastical tradition? He does not tell Timothy, not to write these words, not to deliver this epistle into the hands of those that succeeded him; but those things he had heard before many witnesses, to commit these to faithful men, that is, to those who have the care of others, those in whose prudence, in whose virtue, and in whose sincerity, he could fully rely; that so they, in their turn, may be able

to communicate them to others. Then, does not this imply a system of oral teaching, a system of divine authority, grounded on that link which should be established between the later teachers and the apostles to whom they could trace their doctrines?

In like manner, we find him exhorting the Thessalonians to keep all the traditions which they had received from him, whether by epistle, or whether by word of mouth; showing again, that there were two classes of truth that had been committed to them; that some were to be written, and that others were unwritten, and that both were exactly on an equal footing, that both were to be received with equal respect, that both were to be observed in the church with equal punctuality, and both, consequently, committed to those who should succeed them. When I find these express testimonials; when I find, in such a marked manner, on the one hand, the principle of authority, and, on the other, the principle of an oral teaching; and, at the same time, the total silence upon any thing like a written code of Christianity which was to be produced; can I, for a moment, hesitate as to which was the method pursued by the apostles, and what are the grounds on which they built up their churches? Must I not conclude that it was upon this twofold principle, of authority to teach vested in the pastors, and the unwritten code whereby they were to teach, as well as by the written word?

But, let us go a little farther into this consideration. I said, that we have no hint, no intimation whatsoever, that the whole of the Christian code was to be committed to writing. On the contrary, we find, the apostles preaching to many barbarous nations; and we have it recorded in ecclesiastical history, that they preached the gospel, not only all over Europe, but they reached even the farthest boundaries of the east. It is a well-ascertained fact, that some of the apostles, probably St. Thomas, penetrated into the peninsula of India; we know that the churches of Mesopotamia received the faith from some of the disciples of Christ; we know that some carried it to Bithynia, to Pontus, and even Scythia itself, and the very interior of Africa. We have had learned treatises written in this country, one lately by the Bishop of Salisbury, to prove that St. Paul preached in this island, and converted the Britons. Why, then, do we not find the Scriptures in all these languages? We have books in some of the languages spoken in those countries as ancient, and even more so, than the time of our Saviour. Is it credible that the first task of the apostles should not have been to translate the word of God into these languages? They had the gift of tongues, and could have done it without error if the presentation of the Bible to men was the first step towards Christianity; and if the only ground on which they were to build their faith was the individual and personal examination of all the articles proposed for their belief. The only version of the Scriptures of any antiquity which has come down to