\ - fyxmll mmvmxtt f tag THE GIFT OF dtwdi c^^....u^uiK id ,/z.3,sr.3 ! .x. (7/5 Cornell University Library BT119 .M28 Temporal mission of the Holy Ghost: or olin 3 1924 029 373 887 The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029373887 Cornell Catholic the Union Library. TEMPORAL MISSION THE HOLY GHOST: REASON AND REVELATION. BY HIS EMINENCE HENRY EDWARD MANNING, The Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. Tif oh> apa fj x&P l C, % K&vrur ij tov aylov Hveifiaros x^'i V ?" Tai ( tapSiai( rffiurv yivojitmi, Kara rip> rov Habhm §amrp> . . . amovpybv apa rb Hvev/ia b> Jj/iiv, afa]0l>; dytd^ov teal btovv qfias iavrf did rf/t; trf t>r aiirb awafpsiar, 6eiar re {ftbireur dirorefayvv koivwvovc. 8. Oybil. Alex. Thetaur. de Trin. Assert, xxxiv. 81 dicatur: In, sanciam Ecclesiam Catholieam, hoc est intelligendum secun- dum quod fides nostra refertur ad Spiritual Sanctum, qui Banetificat Ecclesitun, ut It sensas : Credo in Spiritum Sanctwn sanctijfamt&m Ecclesiam. B. Twin Bum. Theol 2 d « 2 d " Qums. L Art. 9. ad 5. NEW YORK: D. & J. SADLIER & CO. 33 BARCLAY STREET MONTREAL : 275 NOTRE DAME STREET. f. AjZZS'%2. COPYRIGHT, D. & J. SADLIER & CO., 1890. TO THE OONGKEGATION OBLATES OF S. CHARLES, DIOCESE OF WESTMESTSTER. Reverend and deae Fathebs, To whom can I more fittingly dedicate the following pages than to yon, with whom I have spent eight of the happiest years of my life ? If the book has no worth in itself, at least it will express ray affec- tion. It was written last year under the quiet roof of S. Mary of the Angels, at a time when I had no thought of being parted from you ; if, indcod, I may call that a parting which, though it suspends our daily and hourly meeting in community, unites us doubly in the bonds of mutual confidence and service. Nevertheless, though written in other days, I see no reason why it should not be published now. 4 DEDICATION. Such as it may be, you will there find the result of the days which are now, I fear, not to return. S. Augustine says, ''Otium sanctum quserit charitas veritatis. Negotium justum suscipit necessitas chari- tatis. Quam sarcinam si nullus imponit, percipiendaB atque intuenda vacandum est veritati.' * I cannot say that our life together had much leisure in it, but it had times of quiet and many helps, and facilities of theological reading and calm thought, which I can hardly hope for again. The 'Sarcina negotii' baa been laid upon me, and I must bear my burden as I may. You will, I hope, see in these pages nothing con- trary to the spirit of our glorious Father and Patron, S. Charles, who has always seemed to me to represent in an especial way, not so much any particular doc- trine of the Faith, as the Divine authority of the Church, expressed by its Councils, its Pontiffs, and its continuous living and infallible voice. And this appears to me the truth which the great religious confusions of the last three hundred years have com- pletely effaced from the intelligence of the greater part of our countrymen. S. Charles would seem, there- fore, to have a special mission to England and to the nineteenth century. I hope, too, that in these pages will be found * S. Aug. De Oirit. Dei, lib. xix. c. 19. torn. vii. p. 563. DEDICATION. 5 nothing inconsistent with the injunctions of our Eule, which binds us 'ad studium eulturamque disci plin- arum Theologicarum quas pro consilio Sancti Caroli ad normam Tridentini Ccncilii exactse maximesint; eoque pertineant ut Romanae Sedis auctoritas splendescat.' * If we are to ' serve our generation by the will of God,' it must be by the boldest and clearest enunciation of the great principles of Divine certainty in matters of Faith, and by pointing ont the relations of Faith to human knowledge, scientific and moral. On this will depend the purity of Catholic educa- tion ; and the reconciliation of ' Faith with science and dogma with free-thought,' — problems insoluble to all who reject the infallibility of the Church, because -by that rejection they destroy one of the terms of the question. On this also will depend many practical consequences of vital moment at this time : snch as the relations of the Church and of the Faith to the political and social changes of this age : the limits of true and of false liberty of the intellect and the will, in individuals and in societies of n_en, for which the Sov ereign Pontiff has lately given to us, in the Encyclical of last year, an outline and guidance worthy of the Supreme Teacher of the faithful. But it is not my object to anticipate the matter of this book, nor to do more than to point to subjects of which, I trust, if God so will, I may have time to speak hereafter. « Instit. Oblatorum S. Caroli, &c, p. 11. 6 DEDICATION I remember in one of the last nights when I was watching by the dying-bed of our dear and lamented Cardinal, that these thoughts, on which I had heard him so often speak with the abundance and vigour of his great mind, came with a special vividness before me, and I thanked God from my heart for having laid upon us this work through the wisdom of our great Pastor and Friend who was so soon to be taken from us. To him we owe the direction which every year more luminously shows to be the only true remedy, both intellectually and spiritually, for the evils of our time and country. I little thought at that hour that I should date these words to you from under the same roof, where everything speaks to me, all the day long, of his memory and of our loss. Persevere, then, Keverend and dear Fathers, in the path into which he led us. The English people are fair and truthful. They are listening for a voice to guide them in the midst of their contradictory teachers. The errors of the last three hundred years are passing fast away. Preach the Holy Catholic and Roman Faith in all its truth, and in all its fulness. Speak, as none other can, with the authority of God and His infallible Church. Preach as the Apostles preached, and, as the Rule enjoins, with a sancta et virilis simplicitas,' with a holy anl manly simplicity. Contend with men, as a loved and honoured friend has DEDICATION. 7 said of the Apostles, ' They argued not but preached : and eonseience did the rest.' If what I here offer you may help you, use it. If it come short, follow out the same studies and fill up what I have left imperfect. If I had been able, as I thought, to go to Rome before publishing these pages, I should have submitted them to examination before I made them public. As it is, I can only commend them to the eensure of those who can correct me if I shall have erred, and above all to the unerring judgment of the Holy See : taking S. Bernard's words as my own : ' Quae autem dixi, absque praejudicio sane dieta sint sanius sapientis. Romanae prsesertim Ecelesias auetoritati atque examini totum hoc, sicut et caetera quae ejusmodi sunt, univer- sa refero : ipsius si quid aliter sapio, paratus judicio emendare.' * My prayers, day by day, are offered up for you at the altar that every grace may prosper you and the Congregation of S. Charles. Believe me, Reverend and dear Fathers, Always your very affectionate Servant in Jesus Christ, ^i H. E. M. 8 York Place : July 16, 1865. * Epist. ad Canon. Lugdur. , torn. i. p. 76. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION, (pp. 19—50.) Object and method of the work. A Divine Teseher always present Reason either n disciple or a critic. Rationalism true and raise. In the former sense it signifies the use of the reason in testing the evidence of a revelation alleged to be divine, or in perceiving the harmony of the Divine Revelation with the human reason. In the latter sense defined to be an ibnormal and illegitimate use of the reason. Divided into per- fect and imperfect, or fully developed and incipient. 1. The former assumes reason to be the fountain of all knowledge relating to God and to the soul, and therefore the source, measure, and limit of what is credible in the theology of natural religion, to the exclusion of all super- natural revelation. 2. The latter assumes reason to be the supreme test or judge of the intrinsic credibility of revelation admitted in the main to be supernatural. Both kinds of Rationalism are one in prin- ciple : both lower the reason. Incipient Rationalism in the Anglican Church. The Church teaches that Faith is an infused grace which ele- vates and perfects the reason. Object of the present work to show : 1. That to believe in Revelation is the highest act of the human reason. 2. That to believe in Revelation, whole and perfect, is the perfection of the reason. 3. That to submit to the Voice of the Holy Spirit in the Church is the absolute condition to attain a perfect knowledge of Revela- tion. 4. That the Divine Witness of the Holy Spirit in the Church an- ticipates the criticism of the human reason, and refuses to be subject to it. The four bases oi motives of Faith are: 1. That it is a violation of 1* 10 CONTENTS, reason not to bdieve in the existence of Gjd. 2. That it is a violatior of our moral sense not to believe that God has made Himself known to man. 3. That the Revelation He has given is Christianity. 4. That Christianity is Catholicism. Each of these four truths certain by its own proper evidence, and each also confirmatory of the other. Christianity the summing up and final expression in the Person of Jesus Christ, of all the truths of the natural and supernatural order in Judaism and Paganism. Other religions fragmentary and local. Belief in the Holy Trinity leads to believing in Catholicism. Three Divine Persons : three Divine offices — the Father and Crea- tion ; the Son and Redemption ; the Holy Ghost and the Church. Defi- nition of the Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost : The sending, advent, and office of the Holy Ghost through the Incarnate Son, and after the day of Pentecost. The Eternal Procession of the Holy Ghost completes the mystery of the Holy Trinity ad intra ; the Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost completes the revelation of the Holy Trinity ad extra. Tc ■ timony of S. Augustine. The Author's retractation of three er- rors : i. Of false rule of Faith. 2. Of false theory of unity. 3. Of false view of the position of the Roman Pontiff. Unity of the Church indi- vi >Me and singular. Passing away of the so-called reformation. CHAPTER I. •THE RELATION OP THE HOLT GHOST TO THE CHURCH, (pp. 61— 98.) In the Baptismal Creed the article on the Church is united to the article on the Holy Ghost, to signify that the union between the Holy Ghost and the Church is divinely constituted, indissoluble and eternal. By this union the Church is immutable in its knowledge, discernment, nud enunciation of the truth. 1. Proved from Holt Scripture, S. John xiv. xvi., Eph. iv., Rom. xii., 1 Cor. xii. 2. Proved by passages from the Fathers, S. Iren^us, Tertullian, S. Augustine, S. Gregort oi Nazianzum, S. Cyril of Alexanhria, and S. Gregory the Great. Two conclusions follow : 1. The present dispensation that of the Holy Spirit. 2. It differs from His presence and office before the advent of Jesus Christ in many gifts, graces, and manifestations, and principally in five ways: L The Holy Ghost came before into the world by L'is universal of era CONTENTS. 11 turns in all mankind, but now He comes through the Incarnate Son by a special and personal presence. Proved from H. Scripture, S. Augustine 1 , and S. Thomas. Explained by Suarez and Petatius. II. Before the day of Pentecost the Mystical Body of Christ was not complete: the Holy Ghost came to perfect its creation and organization. The Constitution of the Body was deferred until the Head was glorified. 1. Christ, as Ilead of the Church, is the fountain of all sanctity to His mystical Body. Col. i. 19, Eph. i. 22. S. Gregory the Great and S. Augustine. 2. The sanctification of the Church is effected by the gift of the Holy Ghost. Eph. ii. 22, Rom. v. 5, 1 Cor. iii. 16. S. Athana- bius and S. Cyril op Alexandria. 3. The Holy Ghost dwells person- ally and substantially in the mystical Body, which is the incorporation of those who are sanctified. 4. The members of the mystical Body who are sanctified, partake not only of the created graces, but of a sub- stantial union with the Holy Ghost. 5. The union of the Holy Ghost with the mystical Body, though analogous to the hypostatic union, is not hypostatic ; forasmuch as the human personality of the members of Christ still subsists in this substantial union. References to Petatius and Thomassinus. IIL The Holy Ghost came at Pentecost to constitute a union between Himself and the mystical Body that would be absolute and indissoluble. Before the Incarnation He wrought in the souls of men, one by one. His presence, therefore, was conditional, depending on the human will, as it is now in individuals as such ; but in the Church His presence de- pends on the Divine will alone, and is therefore perpetual. 1. The union of the Holy Ghost with the Head of the Church, both as God and as Man, is indissoluble. 2. There will always be a mystical Body for that Divine Head, although individuals may fall from it. Three divine and eternal unions, (1.) Of the Head with the members, (2.) Of the members with each other, (3.) Of the Holy Ghost with the Body, con- stitute the complete organization of the Church. Its endowments are derived from the Divine Person of its Head, and the Divine Person who / is its Life. It receives a communication of the perfections of the Holy Ghost. It is imperishable, because He Is God ; indivisibly one, because He is numerically one, holy, because He is the fountain of holiness ; in- falliblt, because He is the Truth. Its members not only called or elected, but aggregated or called into one. The Church, therefore, is a mystica person, not on probation, but the instrument of probation to others. 12 CONTENTS. IV. Before the Incat lotion the Holy Ghost wrought invisibly : nott by His Temporal Missior. He has manifested His presence and His opera- dons by the Visible Church of Jesus Christ. 1. The Church is the evidence of the presence of the Holy Ghost among men, the visible incorporation of His presence : (1.) By its supernatural and world-wide unity. S. Augustine quoted. (2.) By its imperishableness in the midst of the dissolving works of man. (3.) By its immutability in doctrine of faith and morals. 2. The Church is the instrument of the power of the Holy Ghost : (1.) By the perpetuity and diffusion of the light of the In- carnation. (2.) By the perpetuity of sanctifying grace by means of the Seven Sacraments. 3. It manifests for various ends and at various times His miraculous power. 4. It is the organ of His voice. General Summary. — From the indissoluble union of the Holy Ghost flow : 1. The three properties of Unity, Visiblenesb, and Perpetuity ; 2. The three endowments, namely : Indefectibility in life and duration, Infallibility in teaching, and Authority in governing; 3. The four notes, namely Unity, Sanctity, Catholicity, and Apostolicity. V. Before the Incarnation the Holy Ghost taught and sanctified indi- viduals, but with an intermitted exercise of His visitations; now He teaches and sanctifies the Body of the Church permanently. Three possibly conceivable Rules of Faith : 1. A living Judge and Teacher, or the Divine Mind declaring itself through an organ of its own creation. 2. The Scriptures interpreted by the reason of individuals. 8. Scripture and Antiquity. The two last resolvable into one, namely, the human mind judging for itself upon the evidence and contents of revelation. Its refutation. False theory of a Church once undivided and infallible and afterwards divided and fallible. S. Cyprian and S. Bede quoted. The office of the Holy Ghost as Illuminator consists in the following operations : 1. In the original revelation to the Apostles. 2. In the preservation of what was revealed. 3. In assisting the Church to con- ceive, with greater fulness, explicitness, and clearness, the original truth in all its relations. 4, In defining that truth in words. 6. In the perpetual enunciation and propositions of the same immutable truth. De Locis Theologicis: (I.) Voice of the Living Church, (2.) The Holy Scriptures, (8.) Tradition, (4.) The decrees of General Councils, (5.) The definitions and decrees of Sovereign Pontiffs speaking ex cathe- dr&, (fi.) The unanimous voice of the Saints, (7.) The consent of Doctors, (8.) The voice of the Fathers, (9.) The authority of Philosophers, (10.) Human History, (11.) Natural Reason. COKTENTS. 13 CHAPTER II. THI RELATION 01 THE HOLT GHOST TO THE HUMAN REAS0X. (pp. 99—134.) Two ways of treating this relation : 1. In theso who do not believe- 2. In those who do believe. In the former case Reason must, by neces- sity, ascertain, examine, judge, and estimate the evidence of the fad of a revelation, its motives of credibility and its nature. In the latter case it submits as a disciple to a Divine Teacher. S. Thomas quoted to show the office of reason in regard to revelation : 1. Faith presupposes the operations of reason, on the motives of credibility for which we believe. 2. Faith is rendered intrinsically credible by reason. 3. Faith Is illus- trated by reason. 4. Faith is defended by reason against the sophisms of false philosophy. The relations of reason to revelation are principally five : I. Reason receives Revelation by intellectual apprehension. Analogy of the eye and light. Knowledge of God both in Nature and Revelation a gift or infusion to man, not a discovery by logic or research. Refer- ence to Viva. What was revealed by our Lord and the Holy Ghost inherited and sustained by the Church. II. Reason propagates the truths of Revelation. The Divine Com- mission to the Apostles. Faith came by hearing. III. Reason defies the truths of Revelation divinely presented to it. The Creeds, General Councils, Definitions, and the science of Theology. IV. Reason defends Revelation. 1. Negatively, by showing the nul- lity of arguments brought agdnst it : 2. positively, by demonstrating its possibility, fitness, necessity, and reality. Sketch of the history of The- ology. The ancient Apologies of the early Fathers. The Greek and Latin Fathers. S. John of Damascus, De Orthodoxa Fide in the eighth century. Lanfkanc and S. Anselm in the eleventh. Cur Deus Homo. S. Bernard and Abelard. Peter Lombard, Liber Sententiarum. Al- bertus Magnus, S. Bonaventura, S. Thomas. Summa Theologica. The Dominican and Jei uit Commentators. The Council of Trent. History of Dogma. 14 CONTENTS. V.. Reason transmits Revelation by a scientific treatment and tradi- tion. Theology though not a science proprie dicta, may be truly and correctly so described. The definition of Science in Scholastic Philoso- phy taken from Aristotle. The sense in which Theology is a Science, Opinions of S. Thomas, Cajetan, Vasquez, and Gregory of Valkhtu. Fourteen General Conclusions stated as propositions. CHAPTER HI. THE RELATION OF THE HOLY GHOST TO THE LETTER OF SCRIPTUR1 (pp. 135— 176.) Object of this chapter to trace an outline of the history of the Doe- trint of Inspiration. I. In every century there have been objectors, gainsayers, and unbe- lievers, from Cerinthus, MarciOn, and Faustus the Manichpean, to Luther, Spinoza, Paine, and modern rationalists. II. Doctrine of Inspiration in the Church of England. References to Hooker, Whitby, and Bishop Burnet. Various modern opinions. The Essays and Reviews. ni. The Catholic Doctrine of Inspiration. Five points of faith. 1. That the writings of the Prophets and Apostles are Holy Scripture. 2. That God is the Author of the Sacred Books. 3. That the Sacred Books are so many in number and are such by name. 4. That these books in their integrity are to be held as sacred and canonical. 5. That the Latin version called the Vulgate is authentic. First period of simple faith. — The Fathers both of the East and West extend the Inspiration of the Holy Ghost to the whole of Scripture, both to its substance and to its form. Proved from S. Irensus, S. Macarius, S. Chrysostom, S. Basil, S. Gregory of Nazianzum, and S. John of Damascus. Also from S. Augustine, S. Gregory the Great, and S. Ambrose. Second period of analysis as to the nature ana limits of Inspiration. Two schools of opinion. 1. Every particle and word of the Canonical books was written, by the dictation of Hie Holy Spirit. Tostatus. Estius. Faculties of Louvain and Douai, Melchior Canus, Banez, and the Dominican Theologians generally. CONTENTS. 15 2. The whole matter of Holy Scripture was written by the assistance nf the Holy Spirit, but not -the whole forn. dictated by Him. Bellas- mine, the Jesuit Theologians, and the majority of recent writers on the subject. Opinions of Luther and Erasmus. Discussion caused by the propositions of Lessius and Hamel. P. Simon and Holden. Definition of Inspiration, Revelation, Suggestion, and Assistance. Inspiration includes : 1. The impulse to put in writing the matter which God wills. 2. The suggestion of the matter to be written. 8. The assistance which excludes liability to error. Theologia Wirce- hurgensis. Statement of supposed difficulties. Reply to objections gathered from S. Jerome. In what sense the Vulgate is authentic. Whensoever the text can be undoubtedly established, the supposi- tion of error as to the contents of that text cannot be admitted. Wheresoever the text may be uncertain, in those parts error may be present — this would be an errcr of transcription or translation. 1. The Holy Scripture does not contain a revelation of the physical sciences. 2. No system of chronology is laid down in the Sacred Books. 3. His- torical narratives may appear incredible and yet be true. S. Augustine quoted. CHAPTER IV. THE RELATION OF THE HOLY GHOST TO THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. (pp. 177 — 211.) Christianity neither derived from Scripture, nor dependent upon it. What the Incarnate Son was to the Scriptures of the Old Testament, that the Holy Ghost, servatd proportione, is to the Scriptures of the New. England has hitherto preserved the belief that Christianity is a Divine Revelation, aid that tne Holy Scripture is an inspired Book. Fruits of the Reformation in other countries. In the Catholic Church the relations of the Holy Ghost to the interpretation of Scripture an;: I. The Revelation of the Spirit of God was given, preached, and be- lieved before the New Testament existed. S. Iren^us quoted. H. This Revelation was also divinely recorded before the New Testa- ment Scriptures were written. 1. Upon the minds of pastors and people. 2. In the Seven SacrameDts. 3. In the visible worship of the Church. 4. In the early creeds. Table of the dates of the Books of the New Testament. 16 CONTENTS. HI. The Science of God, incorporated in the Church, is ihe true iej to the interpretation of Scripture. The unvarying witness of the Catho- lic Faith contrasted with the divers interpretations of Protestant sects. IV. The Church is the guardian both of the Faith and of the Scrip- tures. It received both from its Divine Head. It alone witnesses to oth: 1. With a human and historical testimony. 2. With a divine nd supernatural testimony. V. The Church is not only the interpretation, but the interpreter of Holy Scripture. Refutation of the Protestaut theory of private in- terpretation. How the Divine Scriptures become human. S. Jerome quoted. Scripture abused by heretics. S. Augustine and Vincent ob Lerins quoted. Anecdote of Henry III. of England and S. Louis of France. Answer to two accusations brought against the Church : 1. That it supersedes to so great an extent the use of Scripture in the de- votions of the people ; and, 2. That it enunciates its doctrines in an arbi- trary and dogmatic way, regardless of the facts of Christian antiquity and history. In the Church alone the Scriptures retain their whole and perfect meaning. Examples given. The Church has a profound sense of their sacredness. Illustrations from the lives of S. Paulinus, S. Ed- mund, and S. Charles. CHAPTER V. IBS RELATION OP THE HOLT GHOST TO THE DIVINE TRADITION OP TH« PAITH. (pp. 212—247.) Christianity has been preserved pure. Analogy between the Church in Rome in the fourth century and in England in the present. Signs of the dissolution of the various forms of Protestantism. The real ques- tion between the Catholic Church and all Christian bodies separated from it — not one of detail but of principle. Charge of corruption brought against Catholic doctrines. God alone can reform His Church. The ' Unction from the Holy One ' always present to preserve the Faith. Proof from l.S. John ii. drawn out in full. As a consequence of this truth it follows : I. ill the doctrines of the Church to this diy are incorrupt. II. Tl ey are also incorruptible. CONTENTS. 17 HI. They are also immutable. Change of growth different from that of decay. Sense in which the doctrines of the Church are said to grow ; e. g. the dogmas of the Holy Trinity, of the Incarnation, of the Blessed Eucharist, and of the Immaculate Conception. In Protestantism the doctrines of Christianity have suffered the change of decay. XV. The doctrines of the Church are always primitive. The Church ever ancient and ever new. V. They are also transcendent because divine. In the supernatura, order, Faith must come before understanding. S. Augustine quoted. Credo quia impossibile. The Holy Spirit is the Author and Guardian of the Tradition of Christian Truth. He diffuses the light by which it is known, and presides over the selection of the terms in which it is de- fined and enumerated. Objection against Dogmatism, — The Theology of the Nineteenth Century should be moral and spiritual. Answer to objection. Analogy of philosophical truths. Dogmatic Theology con- sists in the scientific arrangement of the primary and secondary orders of Christian truth. A dogma is the intellectual conception and verbal ex- pression of a divine truth. Consequently it cannot essentially change. Answer to objection that Dogmatic Theology is barren and lifeless. Theology divided into Dogmatic, Moral, Ascetical, and Mystical. Their mutual relations. Use made of Catholic sources by Protestant writers. Devotions of the Church founded on its doctrines ; e. g. The Blessed Sacrament, The Sacred Heart, The Passion, etc. The Spiritual JExercism of 8. Ignatius. Summa-y and Conclusion. APPENDIX. (pp. 249—274.) THE TEMPORAL MISSION THE HOLY GHOST. INTRODUCTION. Befoee the reader proceeds to the following pages, I wish to detain him with a few introductory words. 1. Some time ago my intention was to publish a volume of Sermons on Reason and Revelation as a sequel to those on Ecclesiastical Subjects. In the preface to that volume I expressed this purpose. But when I began to write I found it impossible to throw the matter into the form of sermons. I do not imagine that the following pages have any pre- tensions to the character of a treatise, or any merit beyond as I hope, correctness and conformity to Catholic theology. But I have found it necessary to treat the subject in a less popular form than 6er- 20 INTRODUCTION. mons would admit, and to introduce much matter which would be out of place if addressed to any such audience as our pastoral office has to do with. I was therefore compelled to write this volume in Mie form of a short treatise, and though I am fully conscious of its insufficiency, nevertheless I let it go forth, hoping that it may help some who hare not studied these vital questions of our times, and pro- voke others who have studied them to write some work worthier of the subject. Another departure from my first intention was also forced upon me. When I began to consider the nature and relations of Reason and Revelation, I found myself compelled to consider the Author and Giver of both, and the relations in which He stands to them, and they to Him. This threw the whole subject into another form, and disposed the parts of it in another order. I found myself writing on the relations of the Divine Intelligence to the human ; but as these intelligent and vital powers are personal, I was led into that which seems to me, in the last analysis, to comprehend the whole question of Divine Faith, the temporal mission of the Holy Ghost, and the relations of the Spirit of Truth to the Church, to the human reason, to the Scriptures, and to the dogma of Faith. In ascending this stream of light, I found myself in the presence of its Fountain, and I have been unable, whether it be a fault or not, to con- A DIVINE TEACHER ALWAYS PRESENT. 21 template the subject in any other way. It seems to me as impossible to conceive of the relations of Reason and Revelation without including the Person and action of the Spirit of Truth, as to conceive a circle without a centre from which its rays diverge. I do not deny that by intellectual abstraction we may do so, but it would be to mutilate the diagram and the truth together. 2. Now my object, in the following pages, is to show that the reason of man has no choice but to be either the disciple or the critic of the revelation of God. The normal state of the reason is that of a disciple illuminated, elevated, guided, and unfolded to strength and perfection by the action of a Divine Teacher. The abnormal is that of a critic testing measuring, limiting the matter of Divine revelatioi by his supposed discernment or intuition. The formei is the true and Divine Rationalism ; the latter, the false and human Rationalism. Now as, in the following pages, the words ration- alism and rationalistic occur, and always in an ill sense it will be well to say here at the outset in what sense I use it, ar i why I always use it in a bad signification. By Rationalism, then, I do not mean the use of the reason in testing the evidence of a revelation alleged to be divine. Again, by Rationalism I do not mean the percep 5JZ INTRODUCTION. tion of the harmony of the Divine revelation with the human reason. It is no part of reason to believe that which is contrary to reason, and it is not nation- alism to reject it. As reason is a divine gift equally with revelation — the one in nature, the other in grace — discord between them is impossible, and har- mony an intrinsic necessity. To recognise this har- mony is a normal and vital operation of the reason under the guidance of faith ; and the grace of faith elicits an eminent act of the reason, its highest and noblest exercise in the fullest expansion of its powers. By Rationalism I always intend an abnormal and illegitimate use of the reason, as I will briefly here explain. The best way to do so will be to give a Bhort account of the introduction and use of the term. Professor Hahn, in his book, 'De Rationalismi, qui dicitur, vera indole, et qua cum Naturalism o con- tineatur ratione,' says, 'As to . Rationalism, this word was used in the srsventeenth and eighteenth centuries by those who considered reason as the source and norm of faith. Amos Comenius seems first to have used this word in 1661, and it never had a good sense. In the eighteenth century it was applied to those who were in earlier times called by the name of Naturalists.' ' ' Natwralism] as Staiidlin says, ' is distinguished 1 H. T Rose's State of Protestantism m Germany, Introd. xx SEASON EITHEB A DISCIPLE OE A CBrTIO. 23 from Rationalism by rejecting all and every revela- tion of God, especially any extraordinary one, through certain men. . . . SujpernaturaMsm consists in general in the conviction that God has revealed Himself supernaturally and immediately. "What is revealed might perhaps be discovered by natural methods, but either not at all, or very late, by those to whom it is revealed.' ' Bretschneider says that the word ' Rationalism has been confused with Naturalism since the appearance of the Kantian philosophy, and that it was introduced into theology by Reinhard and Gabler. An accurate examination respecting these words gives the follow- ing results. The word Naturalism arose first in the sixteenth century, and was spread in the seventeenth. It was understood to mean the theory of those who allowed no other knowledge of religion except the natural, which man could shape out of his own strength, and consequently excluded all supernatural revelation.' He then goes on to say that theologians distinguish three forms of Naturalism. First, Pela- gianism, which admits revelation, but denies super- natural interior grace. Secondly, a grosser kind, which denies all particular revelation, such as modern Deism. Lastly, the grossest of all, which considers the world as God, or Pantheism." Upon this it is ' H. T. Rose's State of Protestantism in Germany, Introd. xviii. * Ibid., xx. xxi. 24 INTBODUOTION. obvious to remark, that the term Rationalism has been used ir Germany in various senses. It has been made tc comprehend both those who reject all revelation and those who profess to receive it. 1 The latter class, while they profess to receive revelation, nevertheless receive it only so far as their critical reason accepts it. They profess to receive Chris- tianity, but they make reason the supreme arbiter in matters of faith. ' When Christianity is presented to them, they inquire what there is in it which agrees with their assumed principles (i. e. of intrinsic credi- bility), and whatsoever does so agree they receive as true.' Others again affect to allow ' a revealing oper- ation of God, but establish on internal proofs rather than on miracles the Divine nature of Christianity. They allow that- revelation may contain much out of the power of reason to explain, but they say that it should assert nothing contrary to reason, but rather what may be proved by it.' But, in fact, such divines reject the ' doctrines of the Trinity, the Atonement, the Mediation and Intercession of our Lord, Original Sin, and Justification by Faith.' I need not prolong these quotations. They suffice to show that Rationalism has various senses, or rather various degrees ; but, ultimately, it has one and the Bame principle, namely, that the Reason is the supreme and spontaneous source of religious knowledge. It 1 H. T. Rose's State of Protestantism in Germany, Introd. xxiii. RATIONALISM ONE IN PRINCIPLE. 25 may be therefore distinguished into the perfect and imperfect Rationalism, or into the fully-developed and the incipient Rationalism, and these may perhaps be accurately described as follows : — 1. The perfect or fully-developed Rationalism is founded upon the assumption that the reason is the sole fountain of all knowledge relating to God and to the soul, and to the relations of God and of the soul. This does not mean the reason of each individual, but of the human race, which elicits from its own intel- lectual consciousness a theology of reason, and trans- mits it as a tradition in the society of mankind. The reason is therefore the source and the measure or the limit of what is credible in the theology of ra- tional reh'gion. This, necessarily, excludes all super- natural revelation. 1 2. The imperfect, or incipient, Rationalism rests upon the assumption that the reason is the supreme test or judge of the intrinsic credibility of revelation admitted in the main to be supernatural. It is easy to see that nothing but the inconsequence of those who hold this system arrests it from resolving itself into its ultimate form of perfect Rationalism. In both the reason is the critic of revelation. In the latter, it rejects portions of revealed truth as intrinsically in- credible ; in the former, it rejects revelation as a whole for the same reason. The latter criticises the contents 1 Rose, ut supra, xxv. xxvi. JJb INTRODUCTION. of revelation, accepting the evidence of the fact, and rejects portions ; the former criticises both the con- tents and the evidence, and altogether rejects both. ]STow, it is evident that in England we are as yet in the incipient stage of Rationalism. Materialism, Secularism, and Deism are to be found in individuals, but not yet organised as schools, nationalism in the perfect form is also to be found in isolated minds ; but the incipient, or semi-Rationalism, has already established itself in a school of able, cultivated, and respectable men. I need not name the writers of whom Dr. "Williams, Mr. Wilson, and Dr. Colenso are the most advanced examples. In this school most of the followers and disciples of the late Dr. Arnold are to be classed. It does not surprise me to see the rapid and consistent spread of these opinions ; for ever since by the mercy of God I came to see the principle of divine faith, by which the human reason becomes the disciple of a divine Teacher, I have seen, with the clearness of a self-evident truth, that the whole of the Anglican reformation and system is based upon the inconsequent theory which I have designated as incipient Rationalism. It admits revelation, but it constitutes the reason as the judge by critical inquiry of the contents of that revelation, of the interpreta- tion of Scripture,, and of the witness of antiquity. The Church teaches that faith is an infused grace which elevates and perfects the reason ; but as ration RATIONALISM LOWERS THE REASON. 27 alists allege that faith detracts from the perfection of reason, my object will be to show : — 1. That to believe in revelation is the highest act of the human reason. 2. That to believe in revelation, whole and perfect, is the perfection of the reason. 3. That to submit to the Voice of the Holy Spirit in the Church is the absolute condition to attain a perfect knowledge of revelation. 4. That the Divine witness of the Holy Spirit in the Church anticipates the criticism of the human reason, and refuses to be subject to it. Lest any one should imagine that in these propo- sitions I limit the activity and office of the human reason in matters of faith, I will add also the follow ing propositions : — 1. It would be a violation of reason in the highest degree not to believe that there is a God. To be- lieve that this visible world is either eternal or self- created, besides all other intrinsic absurdities in the hypothesis, would simply affirm the world to be God in the same breath that we deny His existence. It would be a gross and stupid conception of an eternal and self-existent being; for to believe it self-created is a stupidity which exceeds even the stupidity of atheism. But if the world were neither eternal nor self-created, it was made; and, if made, it had a maker. Cavil as a man will, there is no escape from 28 INTRODUCTION. this necessity. To deny it is not to reason, but tc violate reason; and to be rationalists, by going con- trary to reason. 2. Secondly, it would be a violation of the moral sense, which is still reason judging of the relations between my Maker and myself, not to believe that He has given to me the means of knowing Him. The consciousness of what I am gives me the law by which to conceive of One higher and better than I am. If I am an intelligent and moral being, and if my dignity and my perfection consist in the perfection of my reason and of my will, then I cannot conceive of a .Being higher and better than myself, than as One who has, in a higher degree, those things which are the best and highest in myself. But my intelligent and moral nature, and the right exercise and action of its powers, is the highest and best that is in me. I know it to exceed all the other excellences which are in me. It exceeds, too, all the perfections of other creatures to whom gifts of strength and instinct have been given, without reason and the moral will.' I am certain, therefore, that my Creator is higher than I am in that which is highest in me, and therefore I know Him to be a perfect intelligence and a perfect will, and these incliwie all the perfec- tions of wisdom and goodness. I say then it would violate the moral sense to believe that such a Being has created me capable of knowing and of Moving THE FOUR BASES OK MOTIVES PF FAITH. 29 Him — capable of happiness and of misery, of good and of evil, and that He has never given to me the means of knowing Him, never spoken, never broken the eternal silence by a sign of His love to me, on which depend both my perfection and my happiness. Now it is certain, by the voice of all mankind, vixat God speaks to us through His works — that He whispers to us through our natural conscience — that He attracts us to Him by instincts, and desires, and aspirations after a happiness higher than sense, and more enduring, more changeless, than this mortal life. God speaks to me articulately in the stirring life of nature and the silence of our own being. What is all this but a spiritual action of the intelligence, and the will of God upon the intelligence, and will of man ? and what is this but a Divine inspiration ? Critically and specifically distinct as inspiration and revelation in their strict and theological sense are from this in- ward operation of the Divine mind upon mankind, yet generically and in the last analysis it is God speaking to man, God illuminating man to know Him, and irawing man to love Him. The inspiration and evelation granted to patriarchs, prophets, apostles, seers, and saints, are of a supernatural order } in which the lights of nature mingle and are elevated by the supernatural and divine. These manifesta- tions of Himself to men are bestowed upon us out of the intrinsic perfections of His own Divine attributes. 30 INTRODUCTION. He created us as objects whereon to exercise His benevolence. His love and His goodness are the fountains of the light of nature. His image, in which He has created ub, by its own instincts turns to Him with the rational and moral confidence that if we feel after him, we shall find Him. And His love and His goodness are such, that our yearnings for a knowledge of Him are satisfied not only by the light of nature, but through His grace by the supernatural revelation of Himself. 3. Thirdly, I am certain, with a certainty which is higher than any other in the order of moral convic- tions, that if there be a revelation of God to man, that revelation is Christianity. The reason of this belief is, that I find in Christianity the highest and purest truth, on the highest and purest matter of which the human intelligence is capable ; that is to say, the purest Theism or knowledge of God, the purest an- thropology or science of man, and the purest morality, including the moral conduct of God towards man, and the moral action of man towards God. These three elements constitute the highest knowledge of which man is capable, and these three are to be found in their highest and purest form in Christianity alone. All the fragments or gleams of original truth which lingered yet in the religions and philosophies of the world are contained, elevated, and perfected in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and of the Eivine per- EACH CERTAIN BY ITS PEOPEE EVIDENCE. *31 fections revealed in it ; in the doctrine of the Incarna- tion, and the perfections of our manhood manifested in the person of Jesus Christ ; and in the Sermon on the Mount, interpreted by the example of Him who spoke it. In these three revelations of the Divine and human natures, God has made Himself known to us, as the object of our love and worship, the pattern of our imitation, and the source of our eternal bliss. Now no other pretended revelation, no other known religion, so much as approximates to the truth and purity of the Christian faith. They are visibly true and pure only so far as they contain germs of it. They are visibly impure and false wheresoever they depart from it. They bear a twofold testimony to its perfection, both where they agree and where they disagree with it. And that which is true of Chris- tianity, viewed objectively in itself, is also visibly true when viewed subjectively in its history. Christianity has created Christendom ; and Christendom is the manifestation of all that is highest, purest, noblest, most God-like in the history of mankind. Christian- ity has borne the first-fruits of the human race. 4. Fourthly, Cliristianity, in its perfection and its purity, unmutilated, and full in its orb and circumfer- ence, is Catholicism. All other forms of Christianity are fragmentary. The revelation given first by Jesus Christ, and finally expanded to its perfect outline by the illumination of the day of Pentecost, was spread 32 INTRODUCTION. throughout the wor?d. It took possession of all na- tions, as the dayspring takes possession of the face of the earth, rising and expanding steadily and irresisti- bly. So the knowledge of God and of His Christ filled the world. And the words of the prophet were fulfilled, ' The idols shall be utterly destroyed ' ; ' not with the axe and the hammer only, but by a mightier weapon. ' Are not my words as a fire, and as a ham- mer that breaketh the rock in pieces ? ' a Idolatry was swept from the face of the world by the inunda- tion of the light of the knowledge of the true God. 'The earth shall be filled, that men may know the glory of the Lord, as waters covering the sea.' 3 The unity and universality of Christianity, and of the Church in which it was divinely incorporated, and gf Christendom, which the Church has created, exclude and convict as new, fragmentary, and false, all forms of Christianity which are separate and local. Now these four truths, as I take leave to call them — first, that it is a violation of reason not to believe in the existence of God ; secondly, that it is a violation of our moral sense not to believe that God has made Himself known to man ; thirdly, that the revelation He has given is Christianity; and, fourthly, that Christianity is Catholicism — these four constitute a ^roof the certainty of which exceeds that of any other moral truth I know. It is not a chain of probabili- 1 Isaias ii. 18. * Jer. xxiii. 29. 3 Hab. ii. 14. EACH CONFIRMATORY OF THE OTHER. • 33 ties, depending the one upon the other, but each one morally certain in itself. It is not a chain hanging by a link painted upon the wall, as a great philosoph- ical -writer of the day well describes the sciences whioh depend upon a hypothesis. 1 These four truths considered in the natural order alone, rest upon the reason and the conscience, upon the collective testi- mony of the highest and purest intelligences, and upon the maximum of evidence in human history. The intellectual system of the world bears its witness to them ; the concurrent testimony of the most ele- vated races of mankind confirm them. They are not four links of an imaginary chain, but the four corner- stones of truth. ' Sapientia sedificavit sibi domum. And the house which the wisdom of God has built to dwell in is the cultivated intellect, or reason of the mystical body, incorporated and manifested to the world in the Yisible Church. This wisdom of God has its base upon nature, which is the work of God, and its apex in the Incarnation, which is the manifes- tation of God. The order of nature is pervaded with primary truths which are known to the natural rea- son, and are axioms in the intelligence of mankind. Such, I affirm, without fear of Atheists, or Secularists, or Positivists, are the existence of God, His moral perfections, the moral nature of man, the dictates of con&sience, the freedom of the will. On these de- ■ Whewell'a History of the Inductive Sciences, vol. i. p. 16. 2* 34 INTRODUCTION. ecended other truths from the Father of Lights as He saw fit to reveal them in measure and in season, according to the successions of time ordained in the Divine purpose. The revelations of the Patriarchs elevated and enlarged the sphere of light in the intelligence of men by their deeper, purer, and clearer insight into the Divine mind, character, and conduct in the world. The revelation to Moses and to the Prophets raised still higher the fabric of light, which was always ascending towards the fuller revelation of God yet to come. But in all these accessions and unfoldings of the light of God, truth remained still one, harmoni- ous, indivisible ; a structure in perfect symmetry, the finite but true reflex of truth as it reposes in the Divine Intelligence. "What is Christianity out the summing up and final expression of all the truths of the natural and supernatural order in the Person of Jesus Christ? God has made Him to be the dvaice(paA.aluoig, or recapitulation, of all the Theism, and of all the truths relating to the nature of man and of the moral law, which were already found throughout the world ; and nas set these truths in their place and proportion in the full revelation of ' the truth as it is in Jesus.' S. Paul compares the Incarnation to the Divine action whereby the light was created on the first day. ' God who commanded the light to shine oat of darkness hath THE FAITH THE PERFECTION OF REASON. • 35 jhined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.' ' And here, perhaps, I may repeat the words in which I expressed the same truth some twenty years ago, J By the unity of doctrine or faith the Church haa taken up all philosophies, and consolidated them in one. "Whether by the momentum of an original revelation, or by the continual guidance of a heavenly teaching, or by the natural convergence of the reason of man towards the unseen realities of truth, it is certain that all thoughtful and purer minds were gazing one way. As the fulness of time drew on, their eyes were more and more intently fixed on one point in the horizon, ' more than they that watch for the morning ; ' and all the lights of this fallen world were bent towards one central region, in which at last they met and kindled. The one Faith was the focus of all philosophies, in which they were fused, purified, and blended. The eternity, the uncreated substance, the infinity of goodness, wisdom, and power, the tran- scendent majesty, the true personality, and the moral providence of the One supreme Maker and Ruler of the world was affirmed from heaven. The scattered truths which had wandered up and down the earth, and had been in part adored, and in part held in un- righteousness, were now elected and called home, and as it were regenerated, and gathere'l into one blessed l - 2 Cor. iy. p. 36 INTRODUCTION. company, and glorified once more as the witnesses of the Eternal. ' God was manifested as the life of the world, and yet not so as to be one with the world ; but as dis- tinct, yet filling all things. God was manifested as the source of life to man. The affinity of the soul of man to God was revealed ; and the actual participa- tion of man, through the gift of grace, in the Divine nature, and yet not so as to extinguish the distinct and immortal being of each individual soul. ' In thus taking up into itself all the scattered family of truth, the one Faith abolished all the inter- mingling falsehoods of four thousand years. There- fore it follows, as a just corollary, that in affirming the unity and the sovereignty of God, it annihilated the whole system of many subordinate deities. It declared absolutely that there is no God but one; that all created being is generically distinct, and has in it no Divine prerogative. It taught mankind that the wisest and the best of earth pass not the bounds of man's nature; that the passions and energies of mankind are, by God's ordinance, parts of man's own being; that they are not his lords, but themselves subject to his control ; that the powers of nature are no gods, but pressures of the one Almighty hand ; and that the visible works of God are fellow-creaturea with man, and put under his feet.' ' 1 The Unity of the Church, pp 205, 200. OTHER RELIGIONS FRAGMENTARY AND LOCAL. '37 To say that Christianity is Catholicism and Cathol- icism is Christianity, is to utter a truism. There was but One Truth, the same in all the world, until the perverse will and the perverted intellect of man broke off fragments from the great whole, and de- tained them in combination with error, ' holding the truth in injustice ' — that is, imprisoned in bondage to human falsehood, and turned against the Revelation of God. There cannot be two Christianities, neither can a fragment be mistaken for the whole. The mountain has filled the whole earth, and the drift and detritus which fall from it cannot be taken, by any illusion, to be the mountain. The unity of Chris- tianity is its identity with its original, and its identity in all the world. It is one and the same everywhere, and therefore it is universal. The unity of Chris- tianity is related to its universality, as theologians say of God, who is One not so much by number as by His immensity, which pervades et«. nity and excludes all other. So it may be said there is one truth which pervades the rational creation in various degrees from the first lights of nature, which lie upon the circum- ference, to the full illumination of the Incarnation of God, which reigns in its centre ; and this divine order and hierarchy of truth excludes all other, and is both the reflex and the reality of the Truth which inhabits the Divine Intelligence. When then I say Catholi- cism, I mean perfect Christianity, undiminished, full 38 INTRODUCTION. orbed, illuminating all nations, as S. Irenseus says, like the sun, one and the same in every place. 1 It seems to me that no man can believe the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in its fulness and perfection without in the end believing in Catholicism. For in the doc trine of the Holy Trinity are revealed to us Thre Persons and three offices — the Father and Creation ; the Son and Redemption ; the Holy Ghost and the Church. Whosoever believes in these three Divine Works, holds implicitly the indivisible unity and the perpetual infallibility of the Church. But into this, as it will be the subject of the first of the following chapters, I si i all not enter now. I will make only one remark upon it in explana- tion of the title of this volume. By the Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost, Catholic theologians un- derstand the sending, advent, and office of the Holy Ghost through the Incarnate Son, and after the day of Pentecost. This is altogether distinct from His Eternal Procession and Spiration from the Father and the Son. Now it is remarkable that the schismat- ical Greeks, in order to justify their rejection of the Filioque, interpret the passages of the Scriptures and of the Fathers in which the Holy Ghost is declared to proceed or to be sent from the Father and the Son, of His Temporal Mission into the world. On the other hand, in these last centuries, those whc have 1 S. Iren. Contra Hceret. lib. i. cap. a. sect. 2. TESTIMONY OF 8. AUGUSTINE. 39 rejected the perpetual office of the Holy Ghost in the* Church by rejecting its perpetual infallibility, inter- pret the same passages, not of the Temporal Mission, but of the Eternal Procession. The Catholic theology, with the divine tradition of faith which governs its conceptions and definitions, propounds to ns both the Eternal Procession and the Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost, from the Father and the Son — the one in eternity, the other in time ; the eternal completing the mystery of the Holy Trinity ad intra, the temporal completing the revelation of the Holy Trinity ad extra. In commenting on the sin against the Holy Ghost, S. Augustine says: 'And for this cause both the Jews and such heretics, whatsoever they be, who be- lieve in the Holy Ghost, but deny his presence in the body of Christ — that is, in His only Church, which is no other than the Church, one and Catholic — without doubt are like the Pharisees who, at that day, though they acknowledged the existence of the Holy Spirit, yet denied that he was in the Christ.' He then argues as follows : ' For to Him [the Spirit] belongs the fellowship by which we are made the one body of the only Son of God ; . . . wherefore,' he says again, ' Whosoever hath not the spirit of Christ, he is none of His. For, to whom in the Trinity should properly belong the communion of this fellovr ;hip but to that Spirit who is common to the Father and the Son J 40 INTRODUCTION. That they who are separated from the Church have not thia Spirit, the Apostle Jude openly declared.' In these passages S. Augustine distinctly affirms that, to deny the office of the Holy Ghost in the Church, is to deny a part of the doctrine of the Trinity. So again, speaking of the absolution of sin, S. Augustine ascribes it to the operation of the Three Persons. ' For the Holy Ghost dwells in no one without the Father and the Son ; nor the Son without the Father and the Holy Ghost ; nor without them the Father. For their indwelling is inseparable whose operation is inseparable. . . . But, as I have already often said, the remission of sins, whereby the king- dom of the Spirit divided against Himself is over- thrown and cast out — and, therefore, the fellowship of the uaity of the Church of God, out of which the remission of sins is not given — is the proper office of the Holy Ghost, the Father and the Son cooperating ; for the Holy Ghost himself is the fellowship of the Father and the Son. . . . Whosoever therefore is guilty of impenitence against the Spirit, in whom the unity and fellowship of the communion of the Church is held together, it shall never be forgiven him, be- cause he hath closed against himself the way of re- mission, and shall justly be condemned with the spirit, who is divided against himself, being also divided against the Holy Ghost, who, against Himself, is not divided. . . . And, therefore, all congregations, ot CONTAINS THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE CHURCH. 41 rathei dispersions, which call themselves churches of Chiist, and are divided and contrary among them- selves, and to the congregation of unity which is His true Church, are enemies : nor because they seem to have His name, do they therefore belong to His con- gregation. They would indeed belong to it if the Holy Ghost, in whom this congregation is associated together, were divided against Himself. But, because this is not so (for he who is not with Christ is against Him, and he who gathers not with Him scatters), therefore, all sin and all blasphemy shall be remitted unto men in this congregation, which Christ gathers together in the Holy Ghost, and not in the spirit which is divided against himself.' ' Like as in the old world the divine tradition of the knowledge of God was encompassed by corrupt and fragmentary religions, so the divine tradition ol the faith is encompassed by fragmentary Christian- ities and fragmentary churches. The belief in the unity of God, before the Incarnation, was broken up into the polytheisms of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Since the Incarnation this cannot be. The illumi- nation of the Word made flesh renders impossible all polytheism and idolatry. The -inity and the spiritu- ality of the eternal God are now axioms of the human reason. But, as S. Augustine profoundly observes, the analogy still holds between the errors of the old 8. Aug. Sermo lxxi., in Matt, xii., torn. v. pp. 386, 398, 401, 103. 4:2 nSTTEOBUCTIOlT. creation and of the new. Satan, as he says, can no longer divide the true God, nor bring in among us fake gods, therefore he has sent strifes among Chris- tians. Because he could not fabricate many gods, therefore he has multiplied sects, and sowed errors, and set up heresies.' ' And here I desire to fulfil a duty which I have always hoped one day to discharge ; but I have hitherto been withheld by a fear lest I should seem to ascribe importance to anything I may have ever said, — I mean, to make a formal retractation of cer- tain errors published by me when I was out of the light of the Catholic faith, and knew no better. I do not hereby imagine that anything I may have written carries with it any authority. But an error is a de- nial of the truth, and we owe a reparation to the truth ; for the Truth is not an abstraction, but a Di- vine Person. I desire therefore to undo, as far as I may, the errors into which I unconsciously fell. They are chiefly three ; and these three are the only formal oppositions I can remember to have made against the Catholic Church. They were made, I believe, tem- perately and soberly, with no heat or passion — with- out, I trust, a word of invective. 1. First, in the year 1838, 1 published a small work 1 ' Unura Deum nobis dividere non potest. Falsos deos, nobis sup- ponere non potest.' . . . ' Lites immisit inter Christianos quia multos deos non potest fabricare : sec/ \s multiplicavit, errores semiaftvit. hsero ■es instituit.' KETRACTATION OF FALSE BULB OF FAITH. 43 on ' The Rule of Faith,' in which, following with im« plicit confidence the language of the chief Anglican divines, I erroneously maintained that the old and true rule of faith is Scripture and antiquity, and I rejected as new and untenable two other rules of faith, — first, the private judgment of the indi- vidual"; and, secondly, the interpretations of the living church. 2. Secondly, in 1841, I published a book on the ' Unity of the Church,' in which I maintained it to be one, visible, and organised, descending by succession from the beginning by the spiritual fertility of the hierarchy. But while I thought that the unity of the Church is organic and moral — that the organic unity consists in succession, hierarchy, and valid sac- raments, and the moral in the communion of charity among all the members of particular churches, and all the churches of the Catholic unity, I erroneously thought that this moral unity might be permanently suspended, and even lost, while the organic unity re- mained intact, and that unity of communion belongs only to the perfection, not to the intrinsic essence of the Church. 3. Thirdly, in a sermon preached betore the Uni versity of Oxford on November 5, 1843, speaking of the conflicts between the Holy See and the Crown of England, T used the words: 'It would seem to be the will of heaven that the dominion of the Roman 44 INTRODUCTION. Pontificate may never be again set Uj in this Church and realm.' Now I feel that I owe a reparation to the truth for these three errors. Beyond these, I am not aware that, for any published statements, I have any repa^ rations to make. And I feel that, as the statements were not declamations, but reasoned propositions, so ought the refutation to be likewise. The whole of the following work will, I hope, be a clear and reasoned retractation of those errors, so that I need now do no more than express, in the few- est words, what it was which led me in 1851 to revoke the statements I had made in 1841 and 1838. It was, in one word, the subject of this volume, the Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost. As soon as I perceived the Divine fact that the Holy Spirit of God has united Himself indissolubly to the mys- tical body, or Church of Jesus Christ, I saw at once that the interpretations or doctrines of the living Church are true because Divine, and that the voice of the living Church in all ages is the sole rule of faith, and infallible, because it is the voice of a Divine Person. I then saw that all appeals to Scripture alone, or to Scripture and antiquity, whether by in- dividuals or by local churches, are no more than ap- peals from the divine voice of the living Church, and therefore essentially rationalistic. I perceived that I had imposed upon myself by speaking of throe rules BETBACTATION OF FALSE THEOKY OF UNITY. 45 of faith ; that the only question is between two judges — the individual proceeding by critical reason, or the Church proceeding by a perpetual Divine assistance. But as I shall have to touch upon this in the first chapter, I dismiss it now. As to the second point, the unity of the Church, I had not understood from whence the principle of unity is derived. It had seemed to be a constitution- al law, springing from external organisation, highly beneficial, but not a vital necessity to the Church. I seemed to trace the visible Church to its founder and His apostles as a venerable and world-wide institu- tion, the channel of grace, the witness for God, and the instrument of the discipline and probation to men. I had not as yet perceived that the unity of the Church is the external expression of the intrinsic and necessary law of its existence ; that it flows from the unity of its Head, of its Life, of its mind, and of its will ; or, in other words, from the unity of the Person of the Incarnate Son, who reigns in it, and of the Holy Ghost, who organises it by His inhabitation, sustains it by bis presence, and speaks through it by His voice. The external unity, therefore, is not the cause but the effect of a vital law, which informs and governs the organisation of the Mystical Body, springing from within, and manifesting itself without, like as the an- imation and development of the body of \ man, which 46 INTRODUCTION. springs from a vital principle, one and indivisib.e in its operations and its essence. All this escaped me while my eyes were holden in the way of twilight where I had been born. The more I read of Angli- can writers upon' the Church, such as Hooker, Field, Bilson, Taylor, Barrow, the more confused all seemed to become. The air grew thick around me. When from them I came to the Fathers, the preconceived modes of interpretation floated between me and the page. The well-known words of S. Cyprian, ' Unus Deus, unus Christus, una Ecclesia,' read to me ' One God, one Christ, one Church,' of many branches, many streams, many rays ; one, therefore, in the trunk, the fountain, and the source, but not one by a continuous and coherent expansion and identit} r . I seemed to see the old dream of organic unity surviving where moral unity is lost. I failed to see that in this I was ascrib- ing to God a numerical unity, to Christ a numerical unity, to the Church a numerical plurality ; that I was playing fast and loose, using the word One in two sens- es ; that while I confessed that God is one to the ex- clusion of plurality and division, and that Christ is one to the exclusion of plurality and division, I was affirm- ing the Church to be one, including division and plu- rality, and that in the same breath, and by the same syllables. Nothing but a life-long illusion, which clouds the reason by the subtleties of controversy, could have held me so long in such a bondage. But OTITT OF CHUECH INDIVISIBLE AND SltJGTJLAK. 47 nothing, I believe, would ever have set mo free if I had not begun to study the question from a higher point — that is in its fountain — namely, the Mission and Office of the Holy Ghost. When I had once ap- prehended this primary truth, both Scripture and the Fathers seemed to stand out from the page with a new light, self-evident and inevitable. I then, for the first time, saw a truth of surpassing moment, which for my whole life had escaped me ; namely, that One means One and no more. The unity of God, and of Christ, and of the Church is predicated nnivocally, not ambig- uously. God is one in ISTatnre, Christ one in person, the Church one in organisation and singularity of sub- sistence, depending on its Head, who is One, and ani- mated by the Holy Ghost, who is likewise One, the principle of union to the members, who constitute the one body by the intrinsic unity of its life. I could then understand why S. Cyprian not only likens the Unity of the Church to the seamless robe of Jesus, but also the weaving of that robe to the formation of the Church, which, he says, is woven deswper, ' from the top throughout,' ' by heavenly Sacraments ; that is, its unity descends from its Head, who impresses upon His mystical body the same law of visible and indivis- 1 'Unitatem ilia portabat de auperiore parte venientem, id eat du coelo et a patre venientem, quae ab aeoipiente ae possidente scindi omni- no non poterat, Bed totam simul et solidam firmitatem inseparabilitei obtinebat.' — S. Cyp. Be Unit. Mccles., Opp. p. 196. Ed. Baluz. 48 INTRODUCTION. ible unity which constitutes the perfection of His nat- ural body. Such, then, is a brief statement of the reasons why, though I still believe the Book on ' the Unity of the Church ' to be in the main sound and true in what re- lates to the visibleness and organisation of the Church, I must retract all that relates to the loss of moral unity oi communion. Nevertheless, for an adequate expression of my reasons, I must refer the reader to the following pages. Lastly : as to the Pontificate of the Yicar of Jesus Christ, this is neither the time nor the place to enter into the subject. I may say, however, in a word, that the point last spoken of prescribes a truer belief in the office of the Head of the Church on earth. The Pri- macy of honour, but ' not pf jurisdiction,' among a plurality of divided Churches, is an illusion which dis- appears when the true and divine unity of the kingdom which cannot be divided against itself rises into view. I saw in this the twofold relation of the visible Head of the Church ; the one to the whole Body upon earth, the other to the Divine Head, whose vicar and repre- sentative he is. A new history of Christendom then unrolled itself before me, not that of our Lord as written by the Jews, but by His own Evangelists. I understood, what I never saw before, the meaning of Supreme Pontiff, and of Vicar of Jesus Christ. I ao PASSING AWAY OF SO-CALLED REFORMATION. 49 knowledge, therefore, that in 1843 I spoke rashly, or rather ignorantly in unbelief. But into this I cannot further enter now. I may refer to a volume on the ' Temporal Power of the Pope ' as expressing more fully that which I did not so much as see afar off when I uttered the words which I hereby retract. All things around us tell of one of those periods which come, from time to time, upon the Church and the bodies which surround it. Three hundred years have revealed at length the intrinsic anarchy and rationalism of the so-called Reformation. It is pass- ing away before our eyes. The men of to-day re- luctantly and unconsciously are undoing what their fathers did— justifying the Church of God by their unwilling testimony. The followers of human guides are disbanding and dispersing on every side ; some further and further from the Light, deeper into the land 'ubi umbra mortis et nullus ordo;' others are turning back towards the illumination which hangs over the world in the Church of God. They are wayfaring painfully and in fear towards the east, meeting the dayspring which is rising upon them journeying into the sun, which is as the light of seven days, the Person of the Spirit in the Church of Jesus Christ. But it is time to make an end. With these few words of introduction, therefore, I will leave the sub- ject, with the prayer that the same Holy Spirit of 50 INTRODUCTION. Truth, Who has brought me out of daikness into the light of Divine Faith, may likewise reveal to others His perpetual office, as the Divine and Infallible Teacher among men. CHAPTEE I. THE BELATION OF THE HOLY GHOST TO THE CHUBOH. In this chapter my purpose is to show the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Church or Mystical Body of Jesus Christ. It is not by accident, or by mere order of enumeration, that in the Baptismal Creed we say, 'I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church.' These two articles are united because the Holy Spirit is united with the Mystical Body. And this union is divinely constituted, indissoluble, eternal, the source of supernatural endowments to the Church which can never be absent from it, or suspended in their operation. The Church of all ages, and of all times, is immutable in its knowledge, discernment, and enunciation of the truth ; and that in virtue of its indissoluble union with the Holy Ghost, and of His perpetual teaching by its living voice, not only from council to council, and from age to age, with an inter- mittent and broken utterance, but always, and at all times, by its continuous enunciation of the Faith, as well as by its authoritative dogmatic decrees. 62 BELATION OF THE HOLT GH08T j.ii order to show that in what follows I am but repeating the language of the Scriptures, Fathers, and Theologians, I will begin by quotations, and after- wards draw out certain conclusions from them. I And first, the testimonies from Scripture, which, being familiar to all, shall be recited as briefly as pos- sible. Our Lord promised that His departure should be followed by the advent of a Person like Himself — another Paraclete — the Spirit of Truth, who proceed- eth from the Father : ' I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with vou for ever. The Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, nor knoweth Him : but you shall know Him ; because He shall abide with you, and shall be in you.' * ' The Paraclete — the Holy Ghost — whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring all things to your n ind, whatsoever I shall have said to you.' a ' It is expedient for you that I go : for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you ; but if I go, I will send him to you.' 3 ' When He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will teach you all truth. For He shall not speak of Him- self; but what things soever He shall hear, He shall epeak ; and the things that are to come He shall shew 1 S. John xiv. 16, 17. » Ibid., 26. * Ibid., xvi. 7. TO THE CHURCH. 53 yon. He shall glorify Me ^_ because He shall receive of Mine, and shall shew it to you. All things what- soever the Father hath, are Mine. Therefore I said, He shall receive of Mine, and shew it to you.' ' The fulfilment of this promise ten days after the Ascension, was accomplished on the day of Pentecost by the personal Advent of the Holy Ghost, to abide for ever as the Guide and Teacher of the faithful, in the name and stead of the Incarnate Son. I forbear to quote the second chapter of the book of Acts, in which this divine fact is not only recorded but de- clared by the Holy Spirit Himself. S. Paul has traced out the events and succession in this divine order, connecting them with the creation and organization of the Church, where he says, ' One body and one spirit ; as you are called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. One God and Father of all, who is above all and through all, and in lis all. But to every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the giving of Christ. Wherefore He saith, " Ascending on high He led captivity captive; He gave gifts to men." Now that He ascended, what is it, but because He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth 1 He that descended is the same also that ascended above all the heavens, that He might fill all things. And He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and * S. Jchn xv : 13-16. 54 RELATION OF THE HOLT GHOST other some evangelists, and other some pastors and doctors. Fir the perfection of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ : until we all meet into the unity of faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfeet man, unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ : that henceforth we be no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doc- trine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive. But doing the truth in charity, we may in all things grow up in Him who is the Head, even Christ ; from Whom the whole body, being compacted and fitly joined to- gether, by what every joint supplieth, according to the operation of the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in charity.' ' The same delineation of the Church as the Mystical Body runs through the epistles to the Romans and the Corinthians. ' For as in one body we have many members, but all members have not the same office ; bo we being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.' * Again to the Corinthians, after enumerating with great particularity the gifts and operations of the Holy Ghost he adds, that 'AH these things one and the same Spirit worketh, dividing tc every one according as he 1 Ephes. iv. 4-16. * Rom. xii. 4, F. TO THE OHUEOH. 55 will. For as the body is one and hath many members ; and all the members of the body, whereaB there are many, yet are one body ; so also is Christ. For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free ; and in one Spirit we have all been made to drink. For the body also is not one member, but many. . . . Now you are the body of Christ, and members of member.' ' I will quote only one other passage. 'According to the operation of the might of His power, which He wrought in Christ, raising Him up from the dead, and setting Him on His right hand in the heavenly places, above all principality and power, and virtue and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. And hath subjected all things under His feet; and hath made Him head over all the Church, which is His body, and the fulness of Him, who is filled all in all." In these passages we have the interpretation of S. John's words : 'As yet the Spirit was not given, be- cause Jesus was not yet glorified.' s The Ascension — that is, the departure of the Second Person Of the Holy Trinity — was hereby declared to be the condition ordained of God for the advent of and perpetual presence of the Third. And the coming 1 1 Cor. xii. 11, 12, 13, 14, 27. * Eph. i. 19-28. * S. John vii. 89. 56 KELATION OF THE HOLY GHOST of the Holy Ghost is likewise declared to he the condition of the creation, quickening, and organisation of the mystical body, which is the Church of Jesua Christ. II. Next, for the teaching of the Fathers ; and first S. Irenseus, who may be said to represent the mind of S. John and of the Church, both in the East and in the West, paraphrases as follows the above passages of Scripture : — In drawing out the parallel of the first creation and the second, of the old Adam and the new, and of the analogy between the Incarnation or natural body and the Church or mystical body of Christ, he says : ' ' Our faith received from the Church, which {receives) always from the Spirit of God as an excellent gift in a noble vessel, always young and making young the vessel itself in which it is. For this gift of God is intrusted to the Church, as the breath of life (was imparted) to the first man, to this end, that all the members partaking of it might be quickened with life. And thus the communication of Christ is imparted ; that is, the Holy Ghost, the earnest of incorruption, the confirmation of the faith, the way of ascent to God. For in the Church (he says) God placed apos- tles, prophets, doctors, and all other operations of the Spirit, of which none are partakers who do not come to the Cbiirch, thereby depriving themselves of life 1 S. Iren. Cord. Haret. lib. iii. cap. 24. TO THE CHURCH. 57 by a pervese mind and by worse deeds. For where the Church is, there is also the Spirit of God ; and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and all grace. But the Spirit is truth. Wherefore they who do not partake of Him (the Spirit), and are not nur- tured into life at the breast of the mother (the Church\ do not receive of that most pure fountain which pro- ceeds from the body of Christ, but dig out for them- selves broken pools from the trenches of the earth, and drink water stained with mire, because they turn aside from the faith of the Church lest they should be convicted, and reject the Spirit lest they should be taught.' Tertullian says, speaking of the Baptismal Creed : ' ' But forasmuch as the attestation of (our) faith and the promise of our salvation are pledged by three wit- nesses, the mention of the Church is necessarily added, since where these are — that is, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost — there is the Church, which is the Body of the Three.' S. Augustine, in expounding the Creed, remarks on the relation in which the article of the Church stands to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. He says : " 'In like manner we ought to believe in the Holy Ghost, that the Trinity, which is God, may have its fulness. Then the Holy Church is mentioned ; . . * Tertul. De. Bapt. sect. vi. ed. Rigalt. p. 226. ' S. August. Enchirid. de Fide, etc., cap. 66, torn. vi. p. 217. 3* 58 EELAT10N OF THE HOLT GHOST the right order of the confession required that to the Trinity should be subjoined the Church, as the dwell- ing to the inhabitant, and as His temple to the Lord, and the city to its builder.' Again he says : ' ' For what the soul is to the body of a man, that the Holy Ghost is to the body of Christ, which is the Church. What the Holy Ghost does in the whole Church, that the soul does in all the members of one body. But see what ye have to beware of, to watch over, and to fear. In the body of a man it may happen that a member, the hand, the finger, or the foot, may be cut off. Does the soul follow the severed member ? While it was in the body lit was alive ; cut it off, its life is lost. So a man is a •Christian and a Catholic while he is alive in the body ; cut off, he becomes a heretic. The Holy Ghost does not follow the amputated limb. If therefore ye would live by the Holy Ghost, hold fast charity, love truth, desire unity, that ye may attain unto eter- nity.' And again : * ' Paul the Apostle says, " One body, one spirit." Listen; members of that body. The body is made up of many members, and one spirit quickens them all. Behold, by the spirit of a man, by which I myself am a man, I hold together all the members; I command them to move; I direct the 1 S. August. Sermo in Die PenUcost. I. torn. v. p. 1090. * IbM.. ii. torn v. p . 1091. TO THE OHDEOH. 59 ayes to see, the ears to hear, the tongue to speak, the hands to work, the feet to walk. The offices of the members are divided severally, but one spirit holds all in one. Many are commanded, and many things are done ; there is one only who commands, and one who is obeyed. What our spirit — that is, our soul — is to our members, that the Holy Ghost is to the members of Christ, to the body of Christ, which is the Church. Therefore the Apostle, when he had spoken of the one body, lest we should suppose it to be a dead body, says : " There is one body." I ask, Is this body alive ? It is alive Whence ? From the one Spirit. " There is one Spirit." ' To this may be added a passage which has been ascribed to S. Augustine, but is probably by another hand. 1 ' Therefore • the Holy Ghost on this day (Pentecost) descended into the temple of His apostles, which he had prepared for Himself, as a shower of eanctification. (lie came) no more as a transient visitor, but as a perpetual comforter and as an eternal inhabitant. . . . He came therefore on this day to His disciples, no longer by the grace of visitation and operation, but by the very Presence of His Majesty ; and into those vessels, no longer the odour of the balsam, but the very Substance of the sacred Unction flowed down, from whose fragrance the breadth of the 1 S. August. ISermo in Die Pentecost, l iom. v. Append, p. 808. 60 UELATTON OF THE HOLT GHOST whole world was to be filled," and all who came to their doctrine to be made partakers of God.' From these principles S. AuguBtine declares the Church to possess a mystical personality. He says : ' ' The Head and the body are one man, Christ and the Church are one man, a perfect man ; He the bride- groom, she the bride. " And they shall be two," he says, " in one flesh." ' And again he says : " ' Therefore of two is made one person, of the Head and the body, of the bride- groom and the bride.' And further : ' If there are two in one flesh, how not two in one voice ? Therefore let Christ speak, because in Christ the Church speaks, and in the Church Christ speaks, both the body in the Head and the Head in the body.' 9 ' Our Lord Jesus Christ often speaks Himself — that is, in His own Person, which is our Head — oftentimes in the person of His body, which we are, and His Church ; but so that the words are heard as from the mouth of one man, that we may urderstand the Head and the body to consist by an integral unity, and never to be put asunder, after the manner of that matrimony of which it is said " two shall be in one flesh." ' The following words of S. Gregory Nazianzen teach expressly the same doctrine:' 'But now the Holy Ghost is given more perfectly, for He is no 1 S. August. In Psal. xiiii. torn iv. pp. 85, 86. * Ibid., xxx. p. 147. 1 Ibid., xl. p. 344 Oral. xli. in Pentecost, torn. i. p. WO, K) THE CHURCH. 61 longer j resent by his operation as of old, but is pres- ent with us, so to speak, and converses with us in a substantial manner. For it was fitting that, as the Son had conversed with us in a body, the Spirit also should come among us in a oodily manner ; and when Christ had returned to His own place, He should descend to us.' S. Cyril of Alexandria likewise says : ' ' What then is this grace ? It is that pouring forth of the Spirit, as S. Paul says.' ' Therefore the Holy Ghost works in us hy Himself, truly sanctifying us and uniting us to Himself, while He joins us to Himself and makes us partakers of the Divine nature." ' Thesaurus de Triii. Assertio xxxiv. torn. v. p. 352. " ' Sic igitur, cum fidelibus ac justia impertiri communicarique Spiritus Sanctus legitur, non ipsamet illius persona tribui, sed ejus efficientia videri potest ; idque communis fere sensus habet eorum, qui in Patrum veterum lectione minus exercitati sunt. Quos qui attente pervestigare voluerit, inteliiget ocoultum quemdam et inusitatum mis- sionis communicationisque modum apud illos celebrari, quo Spiritus Me divinus in justorum sese animos insinuans, cum illis copulatur; eumque non accidentarium, ut ita dicam, esse, hoc est qualitate duntaxat ilia ccelesti ac divina perfici, quam in pectora nostra diffundit idem coelestium donorum largitor ac procreator Spiritus, sed ovai&Sr;, hoc est substanti- alem, ita ut substantia ipsa Spiritus Sancti nobiscum jungatur, nosque sanctos, ac justos, ac Dei denique Filios emciat. Ac nonnullos etiam antiquorum illorum dicentes audiet, tantum istud tamque stupendum Dei beneficium tunc primum hominibus esse concessum, postquam Dei Filius homo factus ad usum hominum oalutemque descendit, ut fructus iste sit adventus, ac meritorum, et sanguinis ipsius, veteris Testamenti jnstis hominibus nondum attributus ; quibus " nondum erat Spiritus datus, quia Jesus nondum iuerat glorificatus," ut Evangelista Joannes Bcribii ' Verum, antequam testes in medium adducam Grsecos illos Latinos 62 RELATION OF THE HOLT GHC8T S. Gregory the Great, summing up the doctrine of S. Augustine, writes as follows : ' — ' The holy univer- sal Church is one body, constituted under Christ Jesus its Head. . . . Therefore Christ, with His whole Church, both that which is still on earth and that which now reigns with Him in heaven, is one Person ; and as the soul is one which quickens the various members of the body, so the one Holy Spirit quickens and illuminates the whole Church. For as Christ, who is the Head of the Church, was con- ceived of the Holy Ghost, so the Holy Church, which is His body, is filled by the same Spirit that it may have life, is confirmed by His power that it may sub- sist in the bond of one faith and charity. Therefore, the Apostle says, " from whom the whole body being compacted and fitly joined together maketh increase of the body." This is that body out of which the Spirit quickeneth not ; wherefore the blessed Augus- tine says, " If thou wouldst live in the Spirit of Christ, be in the Body of Christ." Of this Spirit the heretic does not live, nor the schismatic, nor the excom- municated, for they are not of the body; but the Church hath a Spirit that giveth life, because it inheres inseparably to Christ its Head : for it ia que Patres, teste utar optimo omnium ipsomet Spiritu ; qui idipsum in eacris litteris tarn saepe, tarn aperte, praedicavit, ut omnem haesitationem ?ustulisse videatur.' — Petavius, De Trin. lib. viii. cap. iv. p 128. 1 S. Greg. Expos, in Paol. v. Peewit, torn. Hi. p. 511. rO THE OHUEGH. 63 written, "He that adhereth to the Lord is one spirit with Him." ' In this passage S. Gregory traces out : 1. The Head; 2. The body; 3. The mystical personality ; 4. The conception ; 5. The intrinsic and extrinsic unity of the Ohurch, and the grace of sanctity and life, which is given by the Church alone. Hitherto I have refrained from doing more than trace out the meaning of the passages of Scripture and of the Fathers above cited. I will now go on to draw certain conclusions from them. And, first, it is evident that the present dispensa- tion, under which we are, is the dispensation of the Spirit, or of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity. To Him, in the Divine economy, has been committed the office of applying the redemption of the Son to the souls of men, by the vocation, justification, and salvation of the elect. We are, therefore, under the personal guidance of the Third Person as truly as the Apostles were under the guidance of the Second. The presence of the Eternal Son, by incarnation, was the centre of their unity ; the presence of the Eternal Spirit, by the incorporation of the mystical body, is the centre of unity to us. Again, it is evident that this dispensation of the 64: BELATION OF THE HOLT GHOST Spirit, since the incarnation of the Son, and from the day of Pentecost, differs, in many critical and charac- teristic ways from His presence and office in the world before the advent of Jesus Christ. Tt differs not only in exuberance of gifts and graces, nor only in its miraculous manifestations, nor again in its univer sality, as if what was given before in measure was given afterwards in fulness, but in a deeper way, that is, in the office which He has assumed, and in the man- ner of His presence, I. And, first, the Holy Ghost came before into the world by His universal operations in all mankind, but now He comes through the Incarnate Son by a special and personal presence. As the Son of God has both an eternal generation and a temporal mission, — that is, His eternal genera- tion from the Father,' and His temporal advent by incarnation, — so the Spirit of God has likewise an eternal procession and a temporal mission from the Father and the Son. The eternal mission is title Passive Spiration, whereby the Person and relations of the Holy Ghost to the Father and to the Son are eternally constituted. And this by the Fathers and Theologians ' is called His eternal procession. The temporal mission of the Holy Ghost began from the day of Pentecost, when He came to is through the 1 Petav. De Trinilate, lib. ^iii. cap. 2. * Ibid., lib. vii. cap. 18. se« 5, 6. TO THE CHUKCH. 65 Incarnate Son. S. Augustine teaches that this waa signified by the material breath with which Jesus breathed upon His Apostles, when He said, ' Receive ye the Holy Ghost.' ' It was the symbol and pledge of the gift which He had promised to them. It was reserved till He should be glorified. Then, on His Ascension to the right hand of God, the Holy Ghost was sent from the Father and the Son Incarnate. S. Augustine calls the day of Pentecost the Dies Natalis or Nativity of the Holy Ghost. The Spirit of God had wrought before throughout the whole race de- scended from the first Adam. He came now by a special and personal mission to work in the children of the second Adam. The first Adam by sin forfeited for himself and for us the presence and grace of the Holy Ghost ; the second Adam has restored to His children the presence and the grace which had been lost ; but with this difference — the first Adam was man, the second Adam is God. The first, though sinless, was capable of sinning ; the second, being God, could not sin. The Holy Ghost proceeds from the second Adam to us who are born again in the new creation of God. "What has here been stated is expressed by S. Tho- mas as follows : — On the question whether mission be eternal or temporal only, he says, ' It is to be said ■ S. August. Be Gen ad lit. torn. iii. p. 260. De Trin. lib. iv. torn riii. p. 829. 66 RELATION OF THE HOLT GHOST that in those things which imply the origin of 1 'vine Persons a distinction is to he observed. For some things, by their signification, imply only the relation to their principle, as procession and going forth ; and Borne, together with the relation to their principle, determine the end for which they proceed. Of these some determine the eternal end, as generation and spiration ; for generation is the procession of a Divine Person in the Divine Nature, and spiration, taken passively, implies the procession of love subsisting (in the nature of God). Other things with the relation to their principle imply the temporal end, as mission and gift ; for a thing is sent for this end that it may exist in another, and given to this end that it may be possessed. But that a Divine person should be pos- sessed by any creature, or should be in it by a new mode of existence, is something temporal. Therefore mission and gift in things divine are predicated in a temporal sense alone; but generation and spiration are predicated only of eternity. But procession and going forth are predicated in things divine both eternally and temporally.- From eternity He pro- ceeds as God, but temporally as Man also by a visible mission ; and also that he may be in man by a mission which is invisible.' l And further, he adds, speaking of the mission of the Holy Ghost, ' Bat the visible mission was fulfilled to Christ in His baptism 1 Divi TUomse Sum. Theol., prima pars, qusest. xliii. artic. 2. TO THE CHUECH. 6? under tlr.e form of a dove — which is a fruitful crea- ture — to manifest the authority of bestowing grace by spiritual regeneration which was in Christ. . . . But in the transfiguration, under the form of a Shining cloud, to manifest the exuberance of His teaching. . . . But to the Apostles, under the form of breath, to manifest the power of the ministry in the dispensation of sacraments ; wherefore He said to them, " Whosesoever sins you forgive they are forgiven unto them." But in tongues of fire to manifest the office of teaching, wherefore it is written, "They began to speak with various tongues." But to the Fathers of the Old Testament it was not fitting that the mission of the Holy Ghost should be visibly fulfilled, because it was fitting that the visible mis- sion of the Son should first be fulfilled before that of the Holy Ghost, forasmuch as the Holy Ghost mani- fests the Son, as the Son manifests the Father. But visible apparitions of Divine Persons were made to the Fathers of the Old Testament, which, however, cannot be called visible missions, because they were not made, as S. Augustine says, to designate the in- habitation of a Divine Person by grace, but to mani- fest something else.' * After profusely expounding these articles of S. Thomas, Suarez adds the following words, which are Divi Thorns Sum. Theol , prima pus, qusest. xliii. artic. 1. 68 RELATION OF THE HOLT GHOST very much to our purpose : ' ' And here a distinction may be noted between the mission of the "Word. . . . and this mission of the Spirit; . . . that the mission of the Word is without merit given by the charity of God alone, according to the words of S. John, — " God bo loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son : " but the mission of the Holy Ghost is given through the merits of the Word, and therefore the Spirit was not given until Jesus was glorified. Which Christ Himself also declared, saying, " I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete." ' II. The second characteristic difference is, that the Holy Ghost came to create the mystical body of Christ. Until the day of Pentecost the mystical body was not complete. There could be no body till there was a Head. There was no Head until the Son was in- carnate ; and, even when incarnate, the completion of the body was deferred until the Head was glori- fied ; that is, until the Incarnate Son had fulfilled His whole redeeming office in life, death, resurrection, and ascension, returning to enthrone the Humanity with which His eternal Person was invested, at the right hand of the Father. Then, when the Head was exalted in His supreme majesty over angels and men, ' Suarez, Comment, in Primam Partem D. Thoma, lib. xii. cap t, *eet. 26, De Missione Personarum. TO THE CHUBOH. 69 the creation and organisation of the body was com- pleted. All that had gone before was but type and shadow. The people of Israel, organised and bound together by their Priesthood, and by the ceremonies and ritual of the Tabernacle and the Temple, had but ' a shadow of things to come, but the body is Christ's.' ' It was a Church after the measures and proportions of the times which then were. But it had no Incar nate Head, no Divine Person proceeding from that Head to inhabit and to guide it. Its sacraments were shadows, working ex opere opercmtis, by the faith of the receiver, not by the divine virtue which went out from them. Its sacrifices and priesthood were real in relation to the order which then was, but only shadows of the sacrifice and priesthood of the In carnate Son, and of His Church which is now." What has here been affirmed may be proved by the following propositions : — (1.) That Christ, as Head of the Church, is the fountain of all sanctity to His mystical body. 'In Him it hath well-pleased the Father that all fulness Bhould dwell.' 3 ' He hath made Him Head over all 1 CoL ii. IT. * I am aware that Tournelly appears to be contrary to this state- ment; but not only the stream of theologians is against him, but hia argument, though perhaps not his words, may be shown to agree in •ubstance with what is stated in the text. — De Eccletia, quae?t. i. art. 3 " Coi. i. 19. TO EELATION OF THE HOLT GHOST the Church, which is His body, and the fulness oi Him who is filled all in all.' ' S. Gregory the Great Bays : • For the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, has present always and in all things Him who also proceeds from Himself by substance, namely, the same Spirit. In the saints who declare Him He abides, but in the Mediator He abides in fulness. Because in them He abides by grace for a special purpose, but in Him He abides by substance and for all things.' * S. Augustine says : ' Is there then any other difference between that Head and the excellence of any member beside, that all the fulness of the Divinity dwells in that body as in a temple ? Plainly there is. Because, by a special assumption of that Humanity, one Person with the Word is con- stituted. That assumption then was singular, and has nothing common with any men by whatsoever wisdom and holiness they may be sanctified." A.nd again he says : ' It is one thing to be made wise by the wisdom of God, and another to bear the Person- ality of God's wisdom. For though the nature of the body of the Church be the same, who does not under- stand that there is a great distance between the Head and the members ? ' * 1 Eph. i. 22, 23. ' S. Gregor. Moral, lib. ii. cap. ult. torn. i. p. 78. * S. August, torn. ii. Ep. clxxxyii. 40, p. 691. ' De Agone Christiano, cap. 22, torn. vi. p. 264. TO THE OHUEOH. 71 (2.) That the sanctification of the Church is effect- ed by the gift of the Holy Ghost. Forasmuch as it is 'built together into an habitation of God in the Spirit;' 1 'and the charity of God is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Ghost who is given unto us." This proposition needs no further proof than the fact, that the Church is gathered from the world by baptism, and that into every soul rightly baptized, the graces of Faith, Hope, and Charity are infused, together with the seven gifts, and a substantial union of the Holy Ghost with the soul is constituted. The sanctification therefore of souls is effected, not only by the effusion of created graces, but also by the per- sonal indwelling of the Sanctifier, and by their union with the uncreated sanctity of the Spirit of God. ' Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ? . . . For the temple of God is holy, which (temple) you are.' ' S. Athanasius says : ' We abide in God, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit. But if by the presence of the Spirit who is in us we are made partakers of the Divine Nature, he is beside himself who shall say that this is done by a creature, and not by the Spirit of God. For the same cause He is in men, and they in whom He is are deified. But He who deifies, beyond all doubt, His nature is the nature of God." Again, S. Cyril says : ' Christ is formed in 1 Eph. ii. 28. * Rom. v. 5. • 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17. 4 S. Athan. Ep. I. ad Berapionem, cap. 24, torn. ii. p. 672. 72 RELATION OF THE HOLT GHOST as by the Holy Ghost imparting to us a kind of Di vine form by sanctification and justification." (3.) That the Holy Ghost dwells personally and sub- stantially in the mystical body, which is the incorpo- ration of those who are sanctified. This follows irons the last, and needs no further proof. (4.) That the members of the mystical body who are sanctified, partake not only of the created graces, but of a substantial union with the Holy Ghost. This has been already proved above. (5.) That this substantial union of the Holy Ghost with the mystical body, though analogous to the hy- postatic union, is not hypostatic ; forasmuch as the human personality of the members of Christ still sub- sists in this substantial union. 8 I forbear to add more to this second distinction ; jut I would refer those whose desire to see it fully treated, to the tenth chapter of the Sixth Book, De Inca/rnatione Verbi, in the Theologia Dogmatica of Thomassinus. We may therefore proceed to another distinction. III. Thirdly, a further characteristic difference is constituted by the indissoluble union between the Holy Ghost and the mystical body. Before the Incar- nation, the Holy Spirit wrought in the souls of men one S. Cyril Alex. In Imiam, lib. iv. orat. 2, tern. ii. p. 591. Ed Puis, 1638. " 1'ctav. De Trinitale, lib. viii. cap. 1, § 12. TO THE CHURCH. 73 by one, illuminating, converting, sanctifying, and per- fecting the elect. But the union between His pres- ence and the soul was conditional on the correspond- ence and fidelity of the individual. It was a dissoluble union, and in the multitudes who fell from grace it was actually dissolved. In the faithful, as in Enoch and in Daniel, that union was sustained to the end. In the unfaithful, as in Saul and in Solomon, after their great graces, it was dissolved. We also are under the same law of individual probation. If we persevere in faith, hope, charity and contrition, the union between us and the presence of the Holy Spirit in us remains firm. If we fail, we dissolve it. It is therefore conditional, depending upon our finite, frail and unstable will. And yet such is the strange and superficial view of those who have been deprived of the perfect light of faith by the great spiritual anarchy of the last three hundred years. Having lost the con- ception of the Church as distinct from a multitude of individuals told by number, they suppose the union of the Holy Spirit with the Church to be also condition- al and dissoluble. It is manifest, however, that the union of the Holy Ghost with the Church is not conditional, but absolute, depending upon no finite will, but upon the Divine will alone, an I therefore indissoluble to all eternity. For it is constituted (1) by the union of the Holy Ghost with the Head of the Church, not only as God 4 74 RELATION OF THE HOLY GHOST but as Man, and in both these relations this union it indissoluble. It is constituted further (2) by His union with the mystical body, which, as a body, is imper ishable, though individuals in it may perish. There will never come a time when that body will cease to be, and therefore there will never come a time when the Holy Ghost will cease to be united to it. The mystical body will exist to all eternity in the perfect number of the blessed. These Divine unions, namely, First, of the Head with the members ; next, of the members with each other; and, lastly, of the Holy Ghost with the body, will be likewise eternal. And in the state of glory the perfect personal identity and perfect mutual recognition of the saints in all their orders will perpetuate that which here consti- tutes the symmetry and perfection of the Church. But that which shall be eternal is indissoluble also in time — the union, that is, of the Spirit with the body as a whole. Individuals may fall from it as multitudes have fallen ; provinces, nations, particular churches may fall from it ; but the body still re- mains, its unity undivided, its life indefectible. And that because the line of the faithful is never broken ; the chain of the elect is always woven link within link, and wound together in the mysterious course and onward movement of truth and grace in the hearts and wills of the regenerate. The line of faith, hope, and charity is never dissolved. The three TO THE (.'HUECH. 75 fold cord cannot be broken, and the ever blessed Trin- ity always inhabits His tabernacle upon earth — the souls of the elect, who ' are builded together into an habitation of God in the Spirit.' ' The union therefore of the Spirit with the body can never be dissolved. It is a Divine act, analogous to the hypostatic union, whereby the two natures of God and man are eternal- ly united in one Person. So the mystical body, the head and the members, constitute one mystical person ; and the Holy Ghost inhabiting that body, and diffus- ing His created grace throughout it, animates it as the soul quickens the body of a man. From this flow many truths. First, the Church is not an individual, but a mystical person, and all its endowments are derived from the Divine Person of its Head, and the Divine Person who is its Life. As in the Incarnation there is a communication of the Divine perfections to the humanity, so in the Church the perfections of the Holy Spirit become the endow- ments of the body. It is imperishable, because He is God; indivisibly one, because He is numerically one ; holy, because He is the fountain of holiness ; infallible both in believing and in teaching, because His illumination and His voice are immutable, ana therefore, being not an individual depending upon the fidelity of a human will, but a body depending only on the Divine will, it is not on trial or probation • Eph. ii. 22. 76 RELATION OF THE HOLT GHOST but is itself the instrument of probation to mankind It cannot be affected by the frailty or sins of the hu- man will, any more than the brightness of the firma- ment by the dimness or the loss of human sight. It can no more be tainted by human sin than the holy sacraments, which are always immutably pure and divine, though all who come to them be impure and faithless. What the Chnrch was in the beginning it is now, and ever shall be in all the plenitude of its divine endowments, because the union between the body and the Spirit is indissoluble, and all the opera- tions of the Spirit *'n the body are perpetual and absolute. The multitude and fellowship of the just who, from Abel to the Incarnation, had lived and died in faith and union with God, constituted the soul of a body which should be hereafter. They did not con- stitute the body, but they were waiting for it. They did not constitute the Church, which signifies not only the election but the aggregation of the servants of God ; not only the calling out, but the calling together into one all those who are united to Him. Some of the Fathers do indeed speak of them as the Church, because they were to the then world what the Church is now to the world of to-day. They belong also to the Church, though it did not then exist, just as the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world, 1 hough the sacrifice on Calvary wae TO THE CHURCH. 77 ' four thousand years deferred. All grace was from the beginning given through the Most Precious Blood, though as yet it had not been shed. So the mystical body had its members, though as yet it was not created. They were admitted to it when the kingdom of heaven was opened to them and the Incarnate Word was exalted to His glory as Head over all things to the Church. As then till the Incarnation there was no Incarnate Head, so till the day of Pentecost there was no com- plete organisation. The members were not united to the Head, nor to each other, nor as a body to the Holy Ghost. But it is these three Divine unions which constitute the organisation of the mystical body. And these three unions were constituted by the mission of the Holy Ghost from the Incarnate Son, and by His descent and inhabitation in the mem- bers of Christ. IV. The fourth difference is that whereas the Holy Ghost wrought invisibly before the Incarnation, He has by His temporal mission manifested His presence and His operations by the Visible Church of Jesus Christ. 1. The Church is the evidence of His presence among men. Before the Incarnation He wrought unseen, and by no revealed law of His operations. Now He has assumed the mystical body as the visible incorporation of His presence, and the revealed chau-