LECTURE V.

THE CATHOLIC RULE OF FAITH FARTHER PROVED.

1 TIMOTHY, iii. 15.

"Know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the House of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and the ground of Truth."

HAD you, my brethren, seen the exact and finished design for some sumptuous building, such as it proceeded from the hands of one, all whose works are necessarily most perfect, and who has the power to accomplish whatever he designeth, and did you know that it had been put by him into the hands of zealous, and willing, and competent workmen, that so it might, under his superintendence, be brought into execution, I am sure you would consider it superfluous to inquire, whether the command had been fulfilled, and whether that which was so beautiful in its design was not confessedly more so, and endowed with ten-fold perfection, when in work accomplished. Now, such, precisely is the position wherein we stand with regard to the present inquiry. I have endeavoured, by the simplest course possible, to trace out from the beginning the plan by Divine Providence manifestly laid down, for the communication of his truths to mankind, and for their inviolable preservation among them.

After having, in my preliminary discourses, explained to you the different systems adopted, by us and by others, regarding the rule of faith; after having shown you the complicated difficulties which arise incessantly from the nature of the one, and the beautiful simplicity and harmony which seemed to reign throughout the other; I endeavoured, commencing with the very first and less perfect system adopted by God in his communications with man, to show you what would be natu

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rally and necessarily required, to give at once consistency and perfect beauty to the course which he had commenced, and what would be necessary to give solidity and reality to the typical and symbolical method pursued of old. I essayed, also, with the clear and explicit words of prophecy, to construct, in a manner even before its appearance, that fabric of religion which the Son of God came down from heaven to establish; and then, unfolding before you the Sacred Volume, I endeavoured, to the best of my power, to discover the exact tally and correspondence between the two, to show how that which was most beautifully foreshown, was much more beautifully fulfilled; so that we might conclude it impossible to construct any other system, but that which the Catholic Church maintains and teaches, competent to fulfil either the prophecies of the Old Testament, or the institutions of the New.

And having thus, therefrom deduced what was the work placed in the apostles' hands, what the commission entrusted to their care, what the ground-plan on which they were to erect God's Church, it must, I am sure, appear an almost needless search, to ascertain how far these faithful followers and dutiful disciples carried into execution, the plan committed to them for these purposes. But still, my brethren, it must be interesting and useful too, to follow the same course as I have begun, and ever going simply forward, in the form of historical investigation, see the full and final completion of that which had been foretold and instituted, and trace, in the conduct of the apostles and their first successors, clear evidences of the impossibility of any other rule of faith having then been adopted, save that which the Catholic Church maintains at present. And such is the simple inquiry through which I am anxious to conduct you this evening. The investigation will merely consist in the statement of a few historical facts; and I shall be careful to support it by what must be considered incontestible authority; indeed, to base it on such admitted grounds, as, I trust, will leave no room for cavil or objection.

Christ, then, in completion of the work which he had begun,

gave a commission to his apostles to go forth and preach his gospel to all nations, with the injunction to teach them all things whatever he had commanded, and with a promise that He himself should assist them, and all those who succeeded them in their ministry, to the consummation of the world. Such a promise, as we saw by comparing those words of the New Testament with other passages of Scripture, leaves no room to doubt that thereby was guaranteed the preservation of God's entire and complete truth in the Church of Christ to the end of time.

In explaining the grounds of the Catholic rule of faith, I dwelt chiefly on those passages which expressly argued 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 ample justice to my subject. Nor can I even now, from the course which I have marked out for myself, and must necessarily pursue, supply my deficiency; but I must unwillingly pass over a great deal of strong confirmatory matter, that should justly have come in, to complete the views which I gave in my last discourse. I should, for instance, have dwelt upon those different commissions, which our blessed Saviour gave to his apostles; where he appointed them the governors of his flock, and under different symbols of authority and power, such as giving them the keys of his kingdom, commanding them at discretion to bind and to loose, bestowed upon them, as on another occasion you will see, great jurisdiction and authority over men. I might have led you to consider, how this principle of authority not only forms the basis and groundwork of faith in the Christian Church, but pervades its minor departments, in a descending, consistent scale of gradations, even into its inferior orders:-how, when any member of it becomes refractory, he was to be subject to an authority vested even in its smaller divisions ;* and, above all, I should have dwelt at full length, on those important passages, wherein supreme jurisdiction is given to one; and so the very substruction and Matt, xviii. 17-19.