ment of our Saviour, on the one hand, the establishment of a spiritual authority, always guided by the spirit of truth in every thing pertaining to revelation,

"exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise "thee." (a)

And because authority falls away or obedience ceases, the apostles had been admonished, that they were, in case of refusal and opposition, to shake the dust from off their feet, and that the refractory would be treated more severely than Sodom and Gomorrha. The apostles also warned the faithful of the submission they owed to their bishops :-" Remember your prelates, who have spoken "the word of God to you; whose faith follow."(b) And you, Sir, remember here your supreme governess expelling the bishops who were preaching the word of God, rejecting, instead of following their faith. "Obey your prelates and be subject to them." (c) Call to your mind, moreover your ancestors of 1558, and all those who elsewhere called themselves reformers and reformed.

Jesus Christ had said to his apostles: "He that heareth you, "heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me." And the apostles, sanctioning by the same motive the deference they required of the first faithful to the instructors of their bishops; "He that despiseth (said they) these things, despiseth not man, "but God, who also hath given his Holy Spirit in us." (d) What a contrast between the submission and respect commanded by the scripture towards bishops, and the insubordination and contempt of the reformers towards one another. We will not here repeat the painful narrative of it-both you and I have but too often heard it. But let us at least learn from scripture, what conduct they ought to have adopted. They should have had recourse to the successors of Peter, to the successors of the apostles, and to them they should have addressed the same language that Cornelius, his family and his friends formerly addressed to Peter. "Now therefore, all we

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are present in thy sight, to hear all things whatsoever are com"manded thee by the Lord." (e) This is what the respect enjoined by the scripture commanded them to do: you know what they did do.

(a) Titus, ch. ii, v. 15.—(b) Hebrews, ch. xiii, v. 7.—(c) Ibid. v. 17.— (d) Thessal. ch. iv. v. 8.-(e) Acts, ch, x. v. 33.

and consequently incapable of leading us astray in the doctrine attributed to it; and on the other hand the duty of submission and obedience to the instructions belonging to this authority. We are certain (for it would be blasphemy to doubt that a God-man would fulfil his promise) we are certain that this infallible doctrine, whatever changes take place in the affairs of the world, will never depart from his Church. As to obedience and submission they never will cease to be a duty. But the observation of this, as well as of all other duties, depends upon the free will and liberty of man. What is certain and as clear as the light of the sun, is that all those, who fulfil this duty of obedience to the instructions of the spiritual authority, can never be divided, when once this authority has spoken. What is certain and as clear as the sun, is that by their submission to its word it must necessarily follow that they remain united together in the same Church and the same faith. The authority given by Jesus Christ to his apostles and their successors is therefore the means that he has established, and that we were looking for, to conduct to him, to cement in one body and in one and the same belief, the people of all nations, of all countries and of all ages.

And in fact, that such actually was the intention of our divine Legislator, we learn positively and in distinct terms from the apostle St. Paul. The passage I am going to quote from his epistle to the Ephesians deserves your particular attention. "And he gave some apostles, and some

prophets, and other some evangelists, and other "some pastors and doctors, for the perfecting of the "saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edify

ing of the body of Christ... that henceforth we

"be no more children tossed to and fro, and carried "about with every wind of doctrine, by the wicked"ness of men, by cunning craftiness by which they "lie in wait to deceive."" St. Paul, you see, here reveals to us the interior thoughts of Jesus Christ, his wish, his positive intention in giving us his apostles, and after them the bishops, often designated by St. Paul under the name of pastors, doctors, and priests. For what reason did he establish their ministry? To assemble his saints from all parts of the world, and by their union to raise the edifice of his Church and his mystical body. And how long was the ministry of the pastors to be continued? Until all people drawn by their teaching become members of this great body, and meet successively in the union of faith to the end of the world. Thus the flocking to the same Church, adherence to the same body, agreement to the same faith are the effect, the aim, and object of the ministry established by Jesus Christ.

The conclusion of the passage confirms what has been said in a still more forcible manner. For, following two metaphors of St. Paul, Jesus Christ has given us the ministry of the pastors, in order that, being strengthened by their instructions, we may not float about in uncertainty, like children who, when left to themselves, go as chance leads them to the right or the left without knowing where to direct their steps; and that "we may not be tossed to and "fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine." The doctrine of our conductors is for us, therefore, a solid and weighty anchor. Let us hold fast to this anchor, and let the winds, and the tempests, and

Ch. iv, v. 11. 12. 13.

the waves work their pleasure. We shall, undoubt. edly, be always agitated, but never shall we be drawn away. The immovable anchor will firmly keep us within sight of port and uniformly directed among ourselves towards one and the same centre. As for

those, who being deceived by the artifices and seductions of some individuals shall withdraw from this powerful support to follow them, you will see them become the sport of the winds, having no longer any guide but their own fancy, always uncertain, in rough ocean, wandering from error to error, and, in the confusion of opinions, not knowing what course to steer, some disappear at last under the waves, and others rush distractedly into a labyrinth of endless errors. This is the history of the Church and of all the sects that have separated from it; and St. Paul's doctrine is found to be correct by the experience of eighteen hundred years.

2o 'But if in the small number of writings that we have upon the preaching of our Saviour and of his apostles, we find such manifest proofs of infallibility, how much more striking and more multiplied proofs must they have had, who had the happiness to hear Jesus Christ, and, after him, his disciples, explain themselves upon this important article! We know that the sacred writers have given but a very succinct account of what was said and done by our Saviour and by themselves. St. John goes so far as to declare that if they desired to give the full detail, they would scarcely contain the books that must be written. These words that we read upon the promises made to the Churches should

Tradition of the first ages.-Gospel. Last verse.

therefore be regarded as some straggling evidences. They are sufficient indeed to command our belief; but they must have been more repeated and more developed by the living voice of Jesus Christ. In fact, by imposing upon some the obligation of teaching, and on others that of hearing, he must necessarily have guaranteed all against the danger of deceiving or of being deceived. By enjoining them above all things to preserve unity among them from one end of the world to the other, Jesus Christ must strongly have insisted upon the only means which would keep them together, and in their turn the apostles must have repeated it over and over again in every place to which they carried the word of the gospel. They must have explained to the bishops, as they established them, that the right and obligation of instructing would in all ages attach to the episcopal body of the Church: that decisions made by it should become for the people a rule of faith, manifest and at the same time unshakeable, by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is even to be supposed that the apostles would have carried their solicitude so far as to explain the manner in which they might one day have a mutual understanding and act in concert with one another, according to the circumstances in which it should please heaven to place the Churches, in the exercise of their authority and the promulgation of their doctrine. These considerations convince me, that, of its own nature, the dogma of infallibility must have been a dogma the most clearly known from the first times of the Church. Nevertheless I make no difficulty in confessing that we do not discover so many traces of it in the three first ages as in those that follow. They are not, however, devoid of them, and some of them you shall be made ac