may find a certain allusion and certain prophetic foreboding of that which was later to be fulfilled. And besides theirs, was another and incomparably mightier testimony, here given unto Christ, that of the eternal Father, commanding the apostles to lend implicit credence to whatever they should hear from his mouth. "This is my beloved Son in whom I have well pleased myself, hear ye him." Judge, therefore, my brethren, how solemnly the authority of our divine Saviour must have been impressed on the minds of these apostles; and if ever afterwards, they heard him transfer to them that authority which on this occasion he received-if ever afterwards they heard him say, that 66 as the Father had sent him so did he also send them,"-that "all who heard them heard also him-that whosoever despised them despised not only him, but him also who sent him;" consider what a strong warrant and security this must have been to them; how, recurring to the strong assurances given in his favour on Mount Thabor, they must have felt themselves invested with mighty power, when they went forth to teach, yea; with the same authority, precisely, as they had heard given on this occasion to his words.

Now, it is to these two classes of testimonies in favour of this authority to teach, not only as granted to the apostles, but as perpetuated in the Church, that I wish to call your attention this evening. First, we will consider the testimony of Moses and Elias, or of the old law, in its constitution and prophecies, to the form, character, and qualities of the Church of God:and, Secondly, we will hear the voice of God in the express words and injunctions of our blessed Saviour, seeing what they would lead us to conceive regarding the rule and principle of faith, which I endeavoured to explain to you at our last meeting, namely, the guidance of his Church as the infallible depository of his truth.

The plan which I have followed in these discourses, that is the simple inductive form of argument which I have preferred, as leaving less ground for cavil, renders it necessary that one discourse should be closely linked with the foregoing, so as to

have an unbroken idea of the entire argument, to see the influence which the antecedents have upon what shall follow, and also the strong confirmation which they in their time receive from that which succeeds them. It is, therefore, perhaps, at the risk of being tedious, that I take the liberty of detaining you a few moments, while I recapitulate one or two points, on which I dwelt at full length in my last discourse. Two things I particularly beg to be remembered; in the first place, the explanation I gave regarding the foundation of what we call Church authority. You may remember that I did not enter on any arguments, but contented myself with laying before you the whole Catholic system-showing the connexion of one part with another; and I endeavoured to account to you for every step in the process for reasoning, which might be necessary to arrive at its full demonstration. I observed, therefore, that in the Church of Christ was a body of rulers and teachers, selected in the first instance by our blessed Saviour himself, among the most fervent of his followers, to whom he confided certain doctrines, and laws, coupled with sure pledges, that those who succeeded them should be the depositaries and inheritors of whatsoever he had conferred on them; and, consequently, of the promises expressly given, that he would himself teach through that body in the Church, and be himself the director of all its councils, until the end of time.* Hence, the Catholic believes, that, the Church of Christ consists of the body of the faithful, united with its pastors, among whom Christ resides, and through whom he teaches; so, that, it is impossible that the Church can fall into error. And as we admit, at the same time, that no new revelation of doctrines can be made, so do we believe, that the power of the Church consists in nothing more, than defining that which was believed from all times, and in all her dominion. Such, therefore, is the authority of the Church according to Catholic principles.

The second point to which I beg to recal your attention, although it was only incidentally mentioned, is an important link of connexion, with what I am going to explain this

*Lect. iii. p. 63.

evening; I mean the fact of the old law having been expressly a written law; while, at the same time, most essential doctrines, existing among the Jews at the time of our Saviour, and often assumed by him as the very basis of his preaching to them, had not been delivered in the law, nay, were not even recorded in the prophets, and must, therefore, have been handed down by secret and unwritten tradition.

I proceed, therefore, now to the first portion of my task, which forms the completion and development of that idea, by explaining the strong arguments of analogy which the old law gives us, for constructing the Church to be by Christ established. And you will bear with me if I first propose some preliminary observations.

66 now

And

St. Paul has described the glorious triad of virtues, whereby man is brought into union with God, when he says: there remaineth faith, hope, charity, these are three."* if you will reasonably consider this matter, you will, methinks, hardly fail to observe that threefold, according to the number of virtues here rehearsed, are the stages whereby it hath pleased Divine Providence to accomplish its designs in behalf of man, and to bring him to that sum of perfection, whereof he is capable.

The first state was that of hope, in the dispensation given to the fathers; wherein, as divided into its three eras of promise, of prophecy, and of silent expectation, all was referred to the future, and every other virtue was in some way embraced and comprehended in this one. For if they believed, their faith should seem to have been a disposition and readiness to believe one day the teacher whom God had promised, and in the fulness of time should give unto his people, after whose manifestation their just did pant as the hart after the watersprings, rather than a clear apprehension of what we justly consider the great mysteries of salvation. And hence it is, that St. Paul, speaking of the peculiar faith of some among them, and how difficult it was, doth tell us in express words

* 1 Cor. xiii. 13.

that "against hope they believed in hope."* And so likewise in hope may they be said to have loved, inasmuch, as their love or charity, was but a wistfulness and longing after God's coming to them in the flesh, that so they might stand in his blessed presence, a treasuring up and deep embosoming, as it were, of the affections for a future outburst of the same, when the sum of his mercies should be cast up in their behalf; and not a clear and distinct sense of his beauty and loveliness, or any anxious yearnings after union with him, whose light inaccesssible had hitherto rather dazzled and oppressed, than invited and cheered them. Thus, therefore, it came to pass that all the doctrines and rites proposed unto them wore their looks, in a manner, towards the dawn and day-spring of a brighter season, that their teaching was all in prophecy, their history all in types, their worship all in symbols, and by a just analogy their righteousness all in hope.

Next came the ministration of faith, wherein it is our happiness to live, in which much of what then was future now is past, and most of what was then but hoped for, is now believed: and every other good gift, and virtue is, somehow, exercised through this one, which to us is the root and nourisher of them all. For, if great part of former hope hath been swallowed up in us by faith, that which remaineth unto us of this virtue consists no longer in dark adumbrations and mysterious images, but in objects proposed to us definitely, though dimly, by faith and in faith, with clear and express conditions, and subject to no farther varieties or distincter revelations.

And charity too in our regard reaches us in the same manner. For if the glorious things of God are seen by us, as St. Paul saith, but darkly in the glass of faith, yet hath this glass a concentrating power which makes their rays converge into one point, and play upon our innermost soul, with a warming, as well as a brightening, influence; and the difference between us and those of the older dispensation is briefly this, *Rom. iv. 18.

that the revelation of a final state, wherein God should be the soul's full possession, shone to them as a distant light in a dark place, towards which indeed they might direct their course, but by which they could hardly guide their steps; whereas to us it is a lamp, as well as a beacon, the cheerer, as well as the aim, of our toilsome pilgrimage.

And then at last will come that final state of blessedness, when faith and hope will be entirely swallowed up in boundless and endless charity; when the "light intellectual full of love" shall reabsorb and quench, in its peerless brightness, the scattered beams it had before suffered to wander upon earth; when every other good and holy thing shall melt and be transmuted in that one assimilating, unifying essence; and, like dew-drops which have refreshed us in the morning, and then have been caught up by some heaving swell of the ocean-tide, though small and imperfect, shall become the elements of the unlimited and eternal.

We, thus, are placed in a middle state between one past and one that is yet to come, a state necessarily intended as the completion of the former, and as a preparation for the latter, whereof the type is shadowed forth in that which hath preceded, while itself is the emblem and fair image of that which shall follow. Now, this position must give rise to many interesting analogies; forasmuch, as all things being thus in unbroken progress from the beginning to the end of God's dispensations, without violent shocks or sudden changes, we must expect to find in the present order or state such qualities and dispositions as may suit this its twofold character, that is to say, perfective of a former, and initiatory of a future state. And even as a skilful geometer shall, by the accurate measurement of a shadow, under certain conditions, tell you exactly the height and proportions of the object which projects it, and, again, from the survey of this, shall define what the other should at any time be, so may we by a diligent study of those two other dispensations as well as of our own, the one whereof we are the fulfilment, the other whereof we are the figure,