the prophets, by the inspiration of God; to the Apostles, by the descent of the Holy Ghost, by the presence and guidance of Christ. And that gift which was received by faith has been, by the Spirit of Christ, perpetuated through faith. It was not first given, then left to be discovered; first consigned to faith, then to be proved by reason. It brought its own proof: the inspiration of Apostles became illumination in the Church. The illumination of the Holy Ghost is as perpetual as His presence. His office is, as His presence, " for ever;" that is, unto the end of the world. Did any Christian ever doubt that both "grace and truth," which came by Jesus Christ, are necessary for our salvation? And has any one ever imagined that the Holy Spirit has ceased to sanctify Christ's body? Did He sanctify the Apostles and first believers, and then leave the family of Christ, for all ages, to work out their salvation by moral habits and the force of nature? And if this be as impious as incredible, does He continue to sanctify, but not to illuminate? Does His presence sustain the stream of grace, and not sustain the stream of truth? If the Church is not thrown upon its mere moral powers for sanctity, is it thrown upon its mere intellectual powers for doctrine? Surely the traditions of grace and the traditions of truth are both sustained by the same perpetual and infallible presence. Is it possible to believe that the supernatural illumination of the Spirit was so given as to rest upon no higher base than reason, discovery, criticism, and analogies of nature ? "Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" What is moral evidence, of which so much is said? It is the highest probability which can be attained in matters where there is no manifest certainty in the object, and no higher light than the light of nature in the subject. Suppose the natural light of the individual mind to be aided in some general way by grace: even then, at the highest, moral evidence is only probable; that is, uncertain both in the subject and in the object. Is it possible to believe that this scheme of probabilities (that is, of uncertainty) in doctrine, and imperfection (that is, of doubt) in evidence, is a part of the probation of the regenerate within the revelation of the faith? Because to unbelievers the nature and quality of the proof is a trial of faith, as the mission of our Lord was to the Jews, are we to suppose that probable evidence was a part of the trial of the Apostles after the descent of the Holy Ghost? And if not of the Apostles, was it to those who heard them? For instance, is it a part of the trial of the Church to hold the doctrine of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the holy Sacraments, the Resurrection, upon probable evidence? Surely we are mistaking the very meaning of faith. Faith means trust in a divine authority. The trust we repose in human authority and reasoning may be called faith by an analogy which invests it with a dignity above its own: it is a human and earthly type of a divine gift: just as we speak of natural religion, or the revelations of nature. But faith is an infused grace of God, by which the soul casts its whole confidence upon the authority of God. The infallibility of God is the foundation of that trust. The infallibility of the Church is made up of these two elements; perfect certainty in the object revealed, and spiritual illumination in the subject which perceives it, that is, the Church itself. Shake this foundation, and faith becomes uncertainty; and what is uncertainty, as a rule of life and a principle of action? the best, indeed, that nature can give in most things, but the least truth in the kingdom of God is greater than it. What gives to faith its confidence of trust, its enduring strength in action, its intense insight in contemplation? Certainty founded on revelation. And what is the very first idea of revelation but a clear and infallible knowledge of the truth given direct from God?

Now it is no answer to this to ask, But how many attain to this certainty? This is only the objection urged against the Gospel by free-thinkers from without the Church, namely, its want of universality. It is no objection against either the universality of redemption, or the infallibility of the Church. What has been said amounts to this: that the doctrines of the faith, fully and clearly revealed by inspiration in the beginning, were fully and clearly apprehended by the Church; that the original inspiration has descended in a perpetual illumination; that this divine gift, as it was, at the first, not discovered but received, so it has been, not critically proved, from age to age, by intellect, not gathered by inductions or by the instruments of moral reasoning, but preserved and handed on by faith; that the office of reason is, not to discover and attain, but to illustrate, demonstrate, and expound; that the perpetual preservation of truth is a part of the divine office of the Holy Ghost, ever present in the mystical body of Christ; and that the presence of an infallible Teacher is as necessary to the infirmities of the human reason, as the presence of an omnipotent Comforter is necessary to the infirmities of the human will; that both the will and the reason, without such a presence, omnipotent and infallible, would be in a bondage to evil and to falsehood. This miraculous and supernatural

gift was promised through the prophets. "As for Me, this is My covenant with them, saith the Lord; My spirit that is upon them, and My words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever."

And this promise was renewed and fulfilled by the Word made flesh. "The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." "When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will show you things to come."3 "Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.” "The anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in Him." "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.""

I have dwelt the longer upon this particular