God, nor his miracles, nor in general any outward, positive revelation can be conceived; because they compromise authoritative proofs, outward visible manifestations of eternal ideas; and, accordingly they are by force of an internal necessity there gradually rejected, where it is assumed, that Christ has founded a mere invisible Church, since the members of such a Church need only invisible internal proofs to obtain certitude. On the other hand, the authority of the Church is the medium of all, which in the Christian religion resteth on authority, and is authority, that is to say, the Christian religion itself; so that Christ himself is only in so far an authority, as the Church is an authority.

We can never arrive at an external authority, like Christ, by purely spiritual means. The attempt would involve a contradiction, which could only be disposed of in one of two ways; either we must renounce the idea, that in Christ God manifested himself in history, to the end, that the conduct of mankind. might be permanently determined by him, or we must learn the fact through a living, definite, and vouching fact. Thus authority must have authority for its medium. As Christ wished to be the adequate authority for all ages, he created, by virtue of his power, something homogeneous to it, and consequently something attesting and representing the same, eternally destined to bring his authority before all generations of men. He established a credible institution, in order to render the true faith in himself perpetually possible. Immediately founded by him, its existence is the de facto proof of what he really was; and in the same way as in his life he made, if I may so speak, the higher truths accessible to the senses, so doth his Church; for she

VOL. II.

2

hath sprung immediately out of the vivid intuition of these symbolized truths. Thus, as Christ, in his life, represented under a visible typical form the higher order of the world, so the Church doth in like manner; since what he designed in his representation, hath through the Church and in the Church been realized. If the Church be not the authority representing Christ, then all again relapses into darkness, uncertainty, doubt, distraction, unbelief, and superstition; revelation becomes null and void, fails of its real purpose, and must henceforth be even called in question, and finally denied.

The truth which the Catholic here expresses, can be, in another way, made evident by occurrences in everyday life, and by great historical facts. The power of society in which man lives, is so great, that it ordinarily stamps its image on him, who comes within its circle. Whether it serve truth, or falsehood; whether it direct its efforts towards higher objects, or follow ignoble pursuits; invariably will it be found to fashion the character of its members after its own model.

Hence,

where scepticism has spread in a community, and has impressed its image on its bosom, it is a work of infinite difficulty for the individual to rise superior to its influence. Faith on the other hand, when man sees it firmly established, like a rock, about him, and the community, which presents a great and lively image of attachment to the Redeemer and of happiness in him— the community, we say, whose imperishable existence is faith in him, and accordingly himself,-necessarily seizes and fills up the whole mind of the individual. Accordingly, should the religious man not live in a community, which hath the indestructible consciousness of possessing the truth, and which hath the strongest

internal and external grounds for that belief, such an individual would necessarily become a prey to the most distracting doubts, and his faith would either take no root, or soon again wither.

Let us once more recur to the miracles in the history of the Christian religion, but regard the subject from a different point. A certain view of divine things, which hath once obtained full consistency among any people, or any number of nations, takes so strong a hold on the individual man, that without some higher extraneous interposition, any essential change for the better, that is to say, any transition from falsehood to truth, is utterly impossible. Had Christ not wrought miracles; had the labours of the apostles not been accompanied with signs; had the Divine power to work such wonders not been transmitted to their disciples, never would the Gospel have overcome the heathenism of the Greek and Roman world. Error had usurped the rights which belong to truth alone; and man, who by his very nature is compelled to receive the worship of the social state in which he has been fixed, as the true expression, the faithful image of religious truth, as it is in itself, needed, of course, extraordinary external proofs for the new order of things; and, indeed till such time as this order had been consolidated into a vast social organism. These high attestations, in favour of truth, appear most strikingly and most frequently in the life of the Redeemer himself; because the yet concentrated power of the old world was first to be burst asunder, and those who were destined to be the firstfruits of the new kingdom of God, were to be torn from its magic circle. In proportion as the boundaries of the Church were extended, and the idea of redemption

and the power of the cross were embodied in a more vigorous social form, miracles declined, till at last they had completely fulfilled their destination, and had caused the recognition of the authority that was to supply their place. In this authority, as we said above, they always continue their attestation, because that authority is their own production; and the Church is conscious of owing her very existence to those miracles, and without them cannot at all conceive herself. Hence the fact again, that together with the authority founded by these extraordinary works of God, faith, too, in these works ever simultaneously disappears.

Hence, what a whimsical-we cannot say wonderful -race are the idealists of our time! St. Paul, who had such a spiritual, but at the same time ecclesiastical conception of all things, instituted so living a relation between his faith and the conviction of the Lord's resurrection, that he expressly declared, "If Christ be not risen from the dead, then is our faith vain." And how was it otherwise possible, since in Christianity, which is a divine and positive revelation, the abstract idea and the historical fact-the internal and the external truth

are inseparably united? Our idealists and spiritualists have no need of miracles for the confirmation of their faith! Yes, truly, for that faith is one of their own making, and not the faith in Christ; and it would be indeed singular, if God were to confirm a faith so fabricated by men. No less false and idle is that idealism which separates the authority of the Church from the authority of Christ. Even in this point of view, the reverence which the Catholic bears for his Church, is fully justified by reason. As from the beginning, the abstract idea and positive history, doctrine and fact, internal and external truth, inward and outward tes

timony were organically united; so must religion and Church be conjoined, and this for the reason, that God became man. Could Satan succeed in annihilating the Christian Church, then the Christian religion would be at the same time annihilated, and Christ himself would be vanquished by him.

III. The third point in which the Catholic finds his view of the Church so commendable, is, the influence which it has exerted on the cultivation and direction of the will, on the religious and moral amelioration of the whole man. We speak here no longer of the influence of a clear and firm belief of the truth on the will-a firmness of belief, which only the recognition of an outward and permanent teaching authority can produce -(of this we have already spoken)—but of a direction given to the will by a living membership, with an allembracing, religious society. An ancient philosopher has, with reason, defined man to be a social animal. However little the peculiarity of man's nature is here defined (for his peculiar kind of sociability is not pointed out), yet, a deep trait of what determines the civilization of man by means of man, is, in this definition, undoubtedly indicated. They are only races which, groaning under the destiny of some heavy curse, have sunk into the savage state, that become from the loss of their civilization seclusive, and with the most limited foresight fall back on their own resources, feel no want of an intercourse with other nations, or of an exchange of ideas, of which they possess nothing more, or of a communication of the products of their industry and art, that have entirely disappeared. These productions, which are already in themselves symbols of the intellectual character of their authors, flow into foreign countries, dressed, as it were, in the mental habits and