iii. 16, 17); but it bears on its face the evidence that it was
addressed to men who were already believers, and already instructed, partially at least, in the truths it teaches or enforces, and that it was not written to teach the faith to such as had no knowledge of it, but to correct errors, to present more fully the faith on certain points, to point out the duties it enjoins, to exhort to repentance and reform, and to hold up as motives on the one hand, the fearful judgment of God upon those who disregard his goodness, or despise his mercy, or abuse his long-suffering, and, on the other, the exceeding 155 riches of divine love, and the great reward prepared in heaven for those that believe, love, and obey him. No one can read it without perceiving that it neither is nor professes to be the original medium of the Christian revelation to man, but from first to last supposes a revelation previously made, the true religion to have been already taught, and instructions in it already received. This is true of the Old Testament, and more especially true of the New Testament; and we know historically, and nobody denies it, that the faith was preached and believed, and particular churches, congregations of believers, were gathered and organized, before a word of the New Testament was written.
The Protestant, reduced to the sacred text, even supposing he has the genuine and authentic text, and his private judgment, would be reduced to the condition of the lawyer who should undertake to explain the statutes of any one of our states, in total ignorance of the Common Law, or without the least reference to it or the decisions of the common-law courts. Now and then a statute, perhaps, would explain itself, but in most cases he would be wholly at a loss as to the real meaning of the legislature. Our wise law reformers in this state, a few years since, seeing and feeling the fact, attempted to codify the laws so as to supersede the demand for any knowledge of the Common Law to understand them, and the ablest jurists in the state find them a puzzle, or nearly inexplicable, and our best lawyers are uncertain how to bring an action under the new Code of Procedure. The Protestant needs, in order to interpret the sacred text, a knowledge of revelation which can neither be obtained from the text itself without interpretation nor supplied by private judgment. Hence it is that we find Protestants unable to agree among themselves as to what is or is not the meaning of the sacred text, and varying in their views all the way down from the highest Puseyite who accepts all Catholic doctrine, “the damnatory clauses excepted,” to the lowest Unitarian, who holds that our Lord was simply a man, the son of Joseph and Mary, and rejects the church, the mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation, original sin, redemption, the expiatory sacrifice, regeneration, supernatural grace, the resurrection of the dead, the last judgment, the everlasting punishment of the incorrigible in hell, and the reward of the just in any heaven above the Elysian Fields of the Greeks and Romans or the happy hunting-grounds of the poor Indian. Protestants are able to agree among themselves only so far as they follow Catholic tradition and agree with the church. The Protestant needs to know the Christian faith in order to interpret the sacred text and ascertain it from the Bible, and this he cannot know by his own private judgment or develop from his own “inner consciousness,” since it lies in the supernatural order, and is above the reach of his natural faculties. It is clear, then, that in the Bible interpreted by private judgment he has and can have only a fallible authority.
It is not because the Holy Scriptures do not contain, explicitly or implicitly, the whole faith, that, interpreted by private judgment, they give only a fallible rule of faith, but because, to find the faith in its unity and integrity in them, we must know it _aliunde_ and beforehand. This difficulty is completely obviated by the Catholic rule. The church has in Catholic tradition, which she preserves intact by time or change, the whole revelation, whether 156 written or unwritten, and in this tradition she has the key to the real sense of the sacred Scriptures, and is able to interpret them infallibly. Tradition, authenticated by the church as the witness and depositary of it, supplies the knowledge necessary to the understanding of the sacred text. Read in the light of tradition, what is implicit in the text becomes explicit, what is merely referred to as wholly known becomes expressly and clearly stated, and we are able to understand the written word, because tradition interprets it for us, without any demand for a knowledge or judgment on our part that exceeds our natural powers. Our judgment is no longer private judgment, because we have in tradition a catholic rule by which to judge, and our judgment has not to pass on anything above the province of reason.
The objection we make to the Protestant rule, it must be obvious now to our friend, cannot be retorted. The Protestant must interpret the sacred Scriptures by his private judgment, which he cannot do without passing upon questions which transcend its reach. The Catholic exercises, of course, his judgment in accepting the infallible teachings of the church, but he is not required to pass upon any question above the reach of his understanding, or upon which, by his natural reason, he cannot judge infallibly, or with the certainty of actual and complete knowledge. He is not required to pass upon the truth of what the church teaches, for that follows from her divine institution and commission to teach the revelation God has made previously established. He has simply to pass upon the question, What is it she teaches, or presents clearly and distinctly to my understanding to be believed? and, in passing upon that question, my judgment has not to judge of anything beyond or above reason, and, therefore, is not fallible any more than in any other act of knowledge.
There is another advantage the Catholic rule has over the Protestant rule. In this world of perpetual change, and with the restless and ever-busy activity of the human mind, new questions are constantly coming up and in need of being answered, and so answered as to save the unity and integrity of the faith. The Bible having once spoken is henceforth silent; it can say nothing more, and make no further explanations of the faith to meet these new questions, and tell us explicitly what the word requires or forbids us to believe with regard to them. Hence, Protestants never know how to meet them. Then new or further explanations and decisions are constantly needed, and will be needed to the end of time. Even the explanations and decisions of the church, amply sufficient when made, not seldom, through the subtlety and activity of error, and its unceasing efforts to evade or obscure the truth, become insufficient, and need themselves to be further explained, and applied so as to strike in the head the new forms of old error and deprive them of their last subterfuge. These explanations and decisions so necessary, and which can be infallibly made only by a living and ever-present infallible authority, can be only fallibly made, if at all, on the Protestant rule. Even the creed of the church, though unalterable, needs from time to time not development, but new and further explanations, to meet and condemn the new forms of error that spring up, and to preserve the faith unimpaired and inviolate. How is this to be done infallibly by a book written two thousand years ago and private judgment, or without the 157 divine and infallible authority of the church?
These remarks and explanations, we think, fully answer the objections of our legal friend to the belief on authority, and prove that no attempted retort of the Protestant on the Catholic can be sustained, or entertained even, for a moment. We have thus vindicated for him the Catholic rule, and proved that faith on that rule is possible, practicable, and rational, is reasonable obedience, and by no means a blind submission, as he probably supposes. What more can he ask of us? He cannot repeat his charge and say we have not met the question, for we have met it, at least so far as we understand it, and under more forms than he probably dreamed of in urging it. The question is one that meets the inquirer at the threshold, and he can hardly suppose that we could have accepted the church ourselves without meeting it, considering it at length, and disposing of it.
Yet there is one thing more wanting. The method of proof we have pointed out, however sure and however faithfully followed, does not suffice to make one a Catholic, or to give one true Catholic and divine faith, or faith as a theological virtue; it only removes the obstacles in the way of the intellect in believing, and yields only what theologians call human faith--_fides humana_--which really advances one not a single step towards the kingdom of God, or living union with Christ. A man may be thoroughly convinced, so far as his reason goes, of the whole Catholic faith, and yet, perhaps, never become a Catholic. To be a Catholic, one must have supernatural faith, and be elevated by the grace of God in baptism to the supernatural order of life in Christ. Reason can construct no bridge over which one can pass from the natural to the supernatural; the bridge must be constructed by grace. Faith, the beginning of the Christian life, is the gift of God. The method we have pointed out or the Catholic rule produces the conviction of the truth of the church and what she teaches, and shows it to be one’s duty to seek, if he has it not, the grace that inclines the will, illumines the understanding, and regenerates the soul.
The way in which to seek and find this grace is pointed out by our Lord, Matt. vii. 7: “Ask, and you shall receive; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” The way is the way of prayer. The grace of prayer, _gratia orationis_, is given unto all men. All men can pray. He who prays for it shall receive the grace to seek, and he who seeks shall find, and receive the grace to knock at the door of the church, which will be opened to him, and he have the grace to enter into the regeneration, and live the life of Christ. We have no hope for the conversion of any one who does not pray; and we have more confidence in the humble prayers of simple, sincere, and fervent Catholic souls for the conversion of those without than in all the reasonings in the world, however conclusive they may be. When once grace has touched the heart, all clouds vanish of themselves, all darkness is dissipated, all obstacles disappear, we know not how, and to believe is the easiest and simplest thing in the world. To believe is difficult only when one persists in relying on his own strength and will accept no aid from above. Let those, then, who have faith pray unceasingly for those who have it not.
[42] Lib. lxxxiii. quæst. xxx.
[43] _Vide Summa_, q. xvii. a. 3 in c.
[44] THE CATHOLIC WORLD for May, 1871, first article.
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THE HOUSE OF YORKE. 158