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 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH THE WAY OF 
 SALVATION, 
 
 REVEALED IN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 
 
 A a path and a Way shall be there ; and it shall be called the Holy Way : and this eliall W 
 unto you a -straight way, so that fools shall not err thereiu."— I«aia9 xxxv.S. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Rev. AUGUSTINE F. HEWIT, 
 
 Of the Congregation of St. raid. 
 
 New York: 
 
 THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 
 No. g Warren Street. 
 
 1874. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 
 
 Rev. AUGUSTINE F. HEWITT, 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 
 
 LOAN STACK 
 

 HE ABBEY OF 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 I HAVE written this book from the prompt- 
 ing of a desire to do something expressly 
 for the benefit of that class of Protestants 
 among whom I was born and brought up. 
 Most of the books written in English, with the 
 direct object of convincing Protestants of the 
 truth of the Catholic religion, are specially 
 adapted to the use of Episcopalians of high- 
 church opinions. And, moreover, those Ca- 
 tholic writers who make it their aim to con- 
 vince and convert non-Catholics in general, 
 without special reference to the small body of 
 high-churchmen, usually have in view those 
 who are on the extreme left of Protestantism, 
 or have already lapsed into rationalism. The 
 greater number of converts in our own day 
 have been either from the one or the other of 
 these two classes. Very few have passed 
 
 71 
 
iv Preface. 
 
 directly from Calvinism, or the stricter form of 
 what is called Evangelical Protestantism, to 
 the Catholic faith. There have been, never- 
 theless, some conversions of persons of this 
 sort in Scotland, England, and our own coun- 
 try, besides a much greater number in Ger- 
 many. It is to be hoped that the light of 
 divine truth and grace will ere long penetrate 
 this body, which represents the dogmatic and 
 historical Protestantism of the first pretended re- 
 formers, and has hitherto remained so apparent- 
 ly inert and immovable in the place where it 
 was thrown by the convulsion of the sixteenth 
 century. That it has begun to be disorganized 
 and is on the way to complete disruption, is 
 manifest. It must disappear in the common 
 rationalism and infidelity of the age, or be re- 
 united to the Catholic Church. All human and 
 secondary causes are working toward the effect 
 of producing the former most sad and disas- 
 trous result. It is only the grace and special 
 providence of God which can prevent or im- 
 pede it. It is to be hoped that this divine 
 power will be shown, by bringing back at least 
 a large number of those who still believe in 
 
Preface. v 
 
 the Bible and the divinity of Jesus Christ, with 
 their offspring, to the fold of the true church, 
 from which they are now separated by the sin 
 of their ancestors.\ 
 
 I have determined to make one humble 
 effort toward persuading those who are of the 
 more noble sort, who really love truth and 
 clinof to their Christian traditions of faith and 
 morals, to examine their position seriously, and 
 carefully consider whether it is safe and dura- 
 ble for themselves and their children. I ad- 
 dress only those who believe that those Scrip- 
 tures of the Sacred Canon which are com- 
 monly received among orthodox Protestants 
 and contained in their Bibles are really the 
 word of God. I have in view, first of all, 
 those who hold the Calvinistic doctrines, and, 
 secondarily, all those who believe in common 
 with Calvinists, without holding all their pecu- 
 liar tenets, certain fundamental doctrines re- 
 tained by Calvin, Luther, and the founders of 
 the English Church. Those who hold more 
 latitudinarian opinions are welcome to get what 
 good they can from my course of arguing ; but 
 I have not made- any attempt at directly con- 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 vincing them on their own ground. My argu- 
 ment is from the Scriptures, and presupposes 
 that their true sense, as held by the Catholic 
 Church, is already in several things admitted, 
 and in all other things must be admitted as 
 absolute truth so soon as it is certainly known 
 to be the true sense of the sacred writers. In 
 my quotations I have used King James's Ver- 
 sion, because it is the one with which my Pro- 
 testant readers are familiar. At the same time, 
 I have taken care to ascertain that the passages 
 quoted are substantially correct renderings of 
 the original texts, and have occasionally made 
 some remarks to make the sense of the words 
 used more obvious and precise. The number of 
 non- Catholics who really believe that the 
 Scriptures are the word of God, and must be 
 taken as of divine authority, is rapidly dimin- 
 ishing. It is still, however, large and respect- 
 able, and includes a number of men whose 
 learning and ability are eminent, and have been 
 exerted in producing excellent works in defence 
 of revealed religion against infidelity and ra- 
 tionalism. Therefore, although it is true that 
 the controversy between the •Catholic Church \ 
 
Preface. vii 
 
 and old-fashioned Protestantism is rapidly los- 
 ing its significance, it is not true that it has 
 altogether lost it. The great controversy is 
 with infidelity. Yet it is still worth our while 
 to address argument and persuasion to those 
 who hold on to a part of Christianity, and to 
 reason with them on the evidence which proves 
 that Catholicity is the true and perfect Chris- 
 tianity, the religion of the Bible, and the re- 
 ligion of the old forefathers of our faith. 
 These persons look with dread and sorrow at 
 .the inroads of infidelity and immorality. They 
 cling with a strong conviction and an ardent 
 attachment to the belief in God, in revelation, 
 in Jesus Christ as a divine Saviour, in the 
 divine mission of the prophets and apostles, in 
 the immortality of the soul, the resurrection, 
 and the life to come. They ought to be com- 
 pletely and openly on our side. Unhappily, 
 they are with our enemies, who are also theirs. 
 Consciously, or unconsciously, they are in the 
 position of the moderates of the French Revo- 
 lution, accomplices in a rebellion, whose ex- 
 treme advocates they are helping on in a war- 
 fare against God and his church, destined to/ 
 
viii Preface. 
 
 become themselves the victims of their fury, if 
 their warfare is successful. It is to be hoped 
 that they will see this before the time of the 
 approaching final conflict, and take their place 
 in the Catholic ranks. Future events, how- 
 ever, can only be known in the future time. 
 One thing we may, however, hope for with 
 confidence: that many individuals will be con- 
 verted to the church from those sects which 
 follow the doctrines of Luther and Calvin. If 
 so many have been converted from Anglican- 
 ism and rationalism, why should not a similar 
 stream of conversion soon set in from this other 
 direction ? The movement toward the church 
 has reached those others first, for obvious rea- 
 sons. But at the present time the Catholic 
 Church is so conspicuously brought before the 
 minds of all men, everywhere; and is so rapidly 
 extending itself in the regions where the old 
 Presbyterianism and Congregationalism have 
 held dominion ; that the sincere, candid, and 
 earnestly religious cannot help giving it their 
 serious consideration. I have endeavored to 
 stimulate and assist this conscientious enquiry 
 in the following pages. I was brought up in\ 
 
Preface. ix 
 
 Calvinism, and studied the Calvinistic theology. 
 I made a sincere effort to believe it, and to find 
 in it a doctrine satisfactory to my reason, con- 
 science, and heart. The result of my studies 
 and prayers and efforts to find out and fulfil 
 the will of God was that I became, through 
 the divine grace, a Catholic. I shall be most 
 happy if I can assist others to follow the same 
 course and obtain a share in the same great 
 blessing. Having myself passed over the road 
 from Calvinism to the Catholic faith, I know it 
 well ; and I am confident that all those who are 
 disposed to follow the same route will receive 
 great assistance from what I have written in 
 the present volume. It is by means of those 
 great Catholic doctrines which they already 
 believe that I aim to show them the incon- 
 sistency of the errors which they hold with 
 these aforementioned doctrines ; and by means 
 of their implicit Catholic principles and natural 
 good sense that I endeavor to prove by 
 deduction from those doctrines and express 
 testimonies of Holy Scripture other Catholic 
 doctrines which they misunderstand and reject. 
 The mortal principle of the heresy of Luther/ 
 
x Preface. 
 
 is his doctrine of justification. Therefore I 
 have made it my first object to refute that false 
 and absurd tenet; and to prove the true and 
 Catholic doctrine of justification, as the vital 
 principle of the sound and orthodox doctrine of 
 salvation through Jesus Christ. From this in- 
 terior principle and doctrine I have proceeded 
 outward to the exterior body and surface of 
 the Catholic Church, instead of the usual 
 method of beginning with the outward and 
 visible, and going inward to that which is its 
 invisible and spiritual form. This method is 
 the most suitable for the class of persons I 
 wish to reach, and for my chief object ; which 
 is, to present the Catholic Church, not so much 
 in its historic truth and grandeur, as a divine 
 institution for a certain general end and good ; 
 as in its relation to each individual soul, as the 
 way and means of its eternal salvation. I offer 
 this book, therefore, to those who wish to save 
 their souls, and entreat of them to read it with 
 a serious motive, and with prayer to God for 
 light to see and good-will to obey the truth.\ 
 
 Its concluding pages and preface have been 
 written amid the charming silence and solitude 
 
Preface. xi 
 
 of the shores of that beautiful lake * whose 
 original and Christian name was given to it 
 on the day of its discovery, the eve of Corpus 
 Christi, by the heroic martyr, Father Isaac 
 Jogues. I have had the happiness of laying 
 the corner-stone of the first Catholic church 
 on the borders of the lake, the site of which is 
 in the midst of scenes of historic interest, where 
 formerly the sounds of bloody warfare were 
 loud and frequent. On a still and bright Sun- 
 day afternoon, the magic panorama of nature 
 wearing its softest and most attractive aspect, 
 the air laden with the fragrance of sweet-fern, 
 the psalms and litanies of the Roman Ritual 
 were chanted, and the foundations of the 
 Church of Caldwell, dedicated to the Sacred 
 Heart of Jesus, were blessed. A crowd of 
 Catholics and Protestants, including the off- 
 spring of various races and nations, white, 
 colored, and Indian, picturesquely mingled to- 
 gether, devoutly partook in or listened with 
 respectful and curious interest to the solemn 
 prayers and psalmody, and gave attentive ears 
 to the eloquent' voice of the preacher, whose 
 
 * Lake George. 
 
xii Preface. 
 
 discourse closed the services of this auspicious 
 day. In memory of this event, I dedicate this 
 book to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the 
 Blessed Sacrament, with the prayer that it 
 may become the corner-stone of many new 
 sanctuaries consecrated to His glory in the 
 hearts of my readers.\ 
 
 St. Mary's of the Lake, 
 
 Lake St. Sacrament, 
 Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Sept. 6, 1874. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER FIRST. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 ' Fundamental Doctrines which are assumed as granted — The 
 Calvinistic Doctrines of Particular Redemption, Election, 
 and Reprobation refuted — The Way of Salvation through the 
 Merits of Christ prepared for all Mankind — The Necessity 
 of Special Means and Conditions by which the Redemption 
 of the Human Race may be applied to Individual Men, . 17 
 
 CHAPTER SECOND. 
 
 Justification by Faith — The Lutheran and Calvinistic Doc- 
 trine of Justification by Faith alone refuted — The Nature 
 and Office of Faith as the first Prerequisite to Justification 
 explained — Statement and Proof of the Catholic Doctrine 
 concerning Saving Faith, . , ... 66 
 
xiv Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER THIRD. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Other Prerequisites of Justification — Repentance and Con- 
 version to God — The Formal Cause and the Instruments 
 of Justification — Regeneration and Sanctifying Grace — The 
 Sacraments Instruments of Grace — Baptism the Sacrament 
 of Regeneration, 81 
 
 CHAPTER FOURTH. 
 
 Necessity of Means for the Remission of Sin after Baptism — 
 Venial and Mortal Sin — The Sacrament of Penance — Ex- 
 treme Unction — Purgatory — Means for the Preservation 
 and Increase of Grace and Holiness — The Holy Eucharist 
 the great Source of Grace and Nourishment for the Soul, . 127 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTH. 
 
 Of the Church — Its Unity and Authority— Of the Rule of 
 Faith — The Mystics — Luther's Doctrine of Private Illumi- 
 nation — Of Teaching Authority in General — Of Infallibility 
 — Various Theories Examined and Tested — The Validity 
 of the Argument from Scripture Established — Indirect, Ne- 
 gative, Cumulative, and Presumptive Proofs that the Ca- 
 tholic Church alone is the true Church, . . . 163 
 
Contents. xv 
 
 CHAPTER SIXTH. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Nature, Attributes, and Organic Principles of the True 
 Church proved from Scripture — Proof that the Holy, Catho- 
 lic, Apostolic, Roman Church is the One True Church 
 founded by Jesus Christ — The only Way of Salvation is in 
 the Catholic Church — Conclusion, .... 237 1 
 
The Way of Salvation. 
 
 CHAPTER FIRST. 
 
 ) Fundamental Doctrines which are assumed as granted — The Cal- 
 vinistic Doctrines of Particular Redemption, Election, and Re- 
 probation refuted — The Way of Salvation through the Merits of 
 Christ prepared for all Mankind — The Necessity of Special 
 Means and Conditions by which the Redemption of the Human 
 Race may be applied to Individual Men \ 
 
 THE theme of my argument in the present vol- 
 ume is the way of salvation which is pro- 
 posed in the Holy Scriptures, especially in those of 
 the New Testament, and still more specifically in 
 the Epistles of St. Paul the Apostle, who is the 
 great Doctor of Grace. The particular scope of 
 the argument does not, nevertheless, embrace the 
 proof of all the doctrines involved in this theme, 
 considered in all its completeness. Several of the 
 most fundamental of these doctrines will be taken 
 for granted at the outset, and assumed as the data 
 from which the argument will proceed. The reason 
 for doing so is, that the argument is addressed to 
 those only who hold these doctrines as the first prill- 
 
1 8 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 ciples of their religious belief, and therefore do net 
 require to have them proved. The chief of these 
 doctrines which are taken as fully admitted by 
 those who are addressed in this volume are : The 
 Trinity, the Incarnation and Redemption, Original 
 Sin, Salvation by Gratuitous Grace, and the Eter- 
 nal Rewards and Punishments of the Future Life. 
 The Way of Salvation is, consequently, determined 
 to be a way provided by the pure and gratuitous 
 goodness of God, through the Eternal Son made 
 man and crucified for men ; through which some 
 men are saved from the guilt and penalty of sin, 
 which binds all other members of the human race 
 for ever, and are finally brought to the end of eter- 
 nal beatitude in God. Most clearly, then, the only 
 part of the general theme which remains as the 
 topic of an argument, is the order or method ac- 
 cording to which that salvation which proceeds 
 from the merits of Jesus Christ and the grace of 
 God, is applied to individual members of the hu- 
 man race. It is certain that whoever will be saved 
 must be saved by the grace of Jesus Christ. But 
 how is this grace to be obtained, and what are the 
 conditions requisite on the part of man that it may 
 be actually efficacious to his salvation ? This is 
 what is meant in these pages by the Way of Sal- 
 vation. It is the way by which one who is con- 
 vinced that he needs to be saved, and who desires 
 
The Way of Salvation. 19 
 
 to be saved, may obtain with certainty the remis- 
 sion of sin, the grace and friendship of God, and 
 everlasting life through the Divine Mediator Jesus 
 Christ. That there is such a way, by which, in the 
 words of St. Augustine, " all who are liberated are 
 most certainly liberated," will be admitted without 
 any question. But the question does arise, and 
 must be answered at the outset, whether this way 
 is open to all men without distinction, and to every 
 individual of the human race without any excep- 
 tion. I shall therefore begin my exposition of the 
 scheme of human salvation proposed in the Holy 
 Scriptures precisely at this point. 
 
 The decree of Almighty God to provide a way 
 of salvation for men, after the fall of Adam, in- 
 cluded the whole human race without any excep- 
 tion, and consequently the redemption effected by 
 Jesus Christ included all men without exception. 
 I lay down this proposition as one to be proved by 
 the Scripture. It has two parts : the first, that God 
 decreed to provide and open a way of salvation for 
 all men ; and the second, that Jesus Christ actually 
 accomplished what God decreed should be done, 
 by his obedience unto death and his crucifixion. 
 These two parts, however, although distinct, are 
 inseparably connected together, and whatever proof 
 is given of either one separately proves equally the 
 other, and thus proves the entire complex propo- 
 
20 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 sition. For, whatever God decreed Jesus Christ 
 accomplished, and no more ; and whatever Jesus 
 Christ accomplished, no less and no more was de- 
 creed by God. If God willed to provide salvation 
 for all men, then Christ died for all ; and if he died 
 for all, then God willed that he should die to pro- 
 vide for all a way of salvation. 
 
 The evidence from the divine Scripture for both 
 parts of the proposition is very abundant and clear. 
 The particular texts which declare the great and 
 consoling truth that Jesus Christ died for all men 
 according to the eternal decree of the Father, will 
 be more intelligible, if we first consider one primary 
 and essential principle of all God's dealings with 
 men. This principle is, that in the state of original 
 justice, in the fall, and in the restoration, mankind 
 bears a common relation to God and to the end 
 which God has prefixed to the human race, and is 
 treated as one grand whole, and not as a mere col- 
 lection of separate individuals. The covenant of 
 life which God made with Adam included all his 
 posterity. The fall of Adam involved all his de- 
 scendants in its consequences. The new covenant 
 of remission and restoration to life was made by 
 the Father with the Son, as the predestined head 
 of the human race in his humanity. Jesus Christ 
 is the second Adam, who undoes the ruinous work 
 of the first Adam. The sin of Adam is the pri- 
 
The Way of Salvation. 21 
 
 mary cause of the temporal and eternal miser- 
 ies of the human race from which Jesus Christ 
 came to redeem it. It was, therefore, this sin be- 
 fore all others which he expiated on the cross. 
 And, in expiating this original sin, he expiated all 
 other sins, for the satisfaction which he made to 
 the divine justice covered the whole ground of the 
 debt due to God by men for their sins. All man- 
 kind fell in Adam and was redeemed by Jesus 
 Christ, is a condensed summary of that part of the 
 theology of the Scriptures which concerns the rela- 
 tion of the human race, under the present order of 
 providence, to God. And this I will now proceed 
 to prove explicitly, so far as relates to my present 
 topic. 
 
 The first passage I cite is that portion of the 
 First Epistle of St. Paul to Timothy, which is in- 
 cluded within the first six verses of the second 
 chapter. 
 
 I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, 
 prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be 
 made for all men ; for kings, and for all that are in 
 authority ; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable 
 life in all godliness and honesty. For this is ac- 
 ceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; who will 
 have all men to be saved, and to come unto the 
 knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and 
 one mediator between God and men, the man 
 
22 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom for all, 
 to be testified in due time." 
 
 The meaning of this passage is obvious on its 
 very surface, but becomes much more clear on a 
 closer inspection. The commandment is given to 
 pray for all men, and the reason on which that com- 
 mandment is founded is the will of God that all 
 men should attain salvation. The Avill of God to 
 save men is therefore coextensive with the precept 
 to pray for men. Is the latter universal and without 
 exception, the former must be equally universal, 
 and extend to every individual of the human race. 
 There is no possible way of restricting the will of 
 God to save men, and the extent of the ransom 
 offered for men, except by restricting the precept 
 of praying for men to a certain class. This can 
 only be done by a violent interpretation, which I 
 trust the good sense of every one of my readers 
 will reject. One who wishes to restrict the saving 
 will of God and the ransom of Christ to the elect, 
 may say — namely, that the end of the prayer for all 
 men is merely that " we," meaning the elect, " may 
 lead a quiet and peaceable life." Even if this were 
 granted, there still remains the statement that 
 M God will have all men to be saved," which cannot 
 be restricted in its meaning without some reason 
 derived from the context, or the nature of the case 
 treated of, which requires such a restriction. Then, 
 
The Way of Salvation. 23 
 
 again, the following clause, " and to come unto the 
 knowledge of the truth," shows that the reason for 
 praying was not exclusively that the faithful of that 
 present time, the church, who are most naturally 
 understood by the word " we," might enjoy peace ; 
 but that others, who were then numbered among 
 the heathen, might also be converted. The special 
 motive, therefore, which is given for praying for 
 rulers — namely, that they might, through the effect 
 of the prayers of the faithful, leave them in peace — 
 does not qualify the entire passage in which they 
 are commanded to pray for all men. The reason 
 why they should pray for all men in general is that 
 God will have all men to be saved, and the special 
 reason why they should pray for rulers is that they 
 may leave Christians in undisturbed liberty to pro- 
 fess and practise their religion. And this is con- 
 firmed by the universal understanding and conse- 
 quent practice of this precept by Christians in all 
 times and places. They have always been in the 
 habit of offering both public and private prayers 
 for all men without distinction or exception, sinners 
 and unbelievers included, that all may come to 
 the knowledge and love of the truth and be 
 saved. The obvious sense of the passage may 
 therefore be thus expressed. The apostle com- 
 mands that prayers should be offered for all 
 men ; and in particular for rulers, that they may 
 
24 The Way of Salvation 
 
 so govern as to leave Christians the free and 
 peaceful exercise of their rights of conscience. 
 The reason and motive why Christians should pray 
 for all men is that they should have charity towards 
 the whole human race, in imitation of the love of 
 God and of Jesus Christ towards men, which is uni- 
 versal. This is still further established and con- 
 firmed by the reasons which are given in conclusion 
 for this universal love on the part of God and of 
 Jesus Christ towards men. The first reason given 
 is, that " there is one God," or, in other words, that 
 all men have the same Creator and Sovereign Lord, 
 who is the author of salvation, or, as St. Paul ex- 
 presses it, is " God our Saviour." The second reason 
 is, that there is " one mediator between God and 
 men, the man Christ Jesus ; avIio gave himself a 
 ransom for all." As Jesus Christ is possessed of 
 the worth of condignity with God the Father by 
 his divine nature, and is therefore the sole and suffi- 
 cient mediator in respect to God, so, by his human 
 nature, he is made a suitable mediator in respect to 
 men. And because he has taken that human nature 
 which is common to all men, he is the mediator of 
 all men, and, as the apostle declares, without restric- 
 tion, "gave himself a ransom for all." It is only 
 necessary, therefore, to have human nature in order 
 to come under that merciful providence of " God 
 our Saviour" which is called the order of salvation, 
 
The Way of Salvation. 25 
 
 and to be ipso facto included in the mediation of 
 Christ and in the number of that multitude for 
 whose sins, both original and actual, he gave him- 
 self as a ransom. The whole passage brings out 
 most clearly the idea which is found everywhere in 
 the Scriptures, that God is in a special and proper 
 sense the God of the human race. God is the God 
 of men, because he has preferred men before all 
 other creatures. He is not merely good and just 
 toward them, but also merciful, providing a way of 
 forgiveness for them when they sin, and of salvation 
 when they have lost themselves, and is therefore for 
 them, and for them alone, God the Saviour. The 
 reason of it is found in their human nature, the pre- 
 destined nature of the Eternal Son, which is made 
 the nature of God by the hypostatic union' in his 
 Person. God the Father loves all men, in a special 
 sense, because they partake of the nature of his 
 Son. Jesus Christ loves them because they partake 
 of his own nature, are his race, and of one blood 
 with himself. This relation to Jesus Christ as the 
 mediator and to the Father as God the Saviour is 
 contracted by that generation from Adam which 
 makes each individual man a member of the human 
 race, and by virtue of this relationship every man is 
 made a capable and fit subject of the mercy of God 
 and the grace of Christ. The two lines by which 
 the whole multitude of human individuals are con- 
 
26 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 nected with Adam and with Christ are therefore 
 parallel and coextensive. That same multitude to 
 which God decreed the salvation by original jus- 
 tice which was lost in the fall is the multitude for 
 which he decreed to provide a way of salva- 
 tion through the mediation and redemption of his 
 Son. St. Paul frequently draws this parallel, and 
 argues with great force from one member of it to 
 the other. 
 
 In his Second Epistle to the Corinthians (v. 14), 
 he argues that all men had incurred spiritual death, 
 from the truth, well known to his auditors as a doc- 
 trine pertaining to the Christian faith, that Christ 
 died for all men. "We thus judge that, if one died 
 for all, then were all dead." This judgment of the 
 apostleMs the conclusion of an informal syllogism, 
 which, reduced to a regular form, is the following : 
 All those to whom pertains the redemption merited 
 by the death of Jesus Christ died in the first Adam, 
 and need restoration to life by the second Adam. 
 But this redemption pertains to all men. Therefore, 
 all men died in the first Adam, etc. The minor 
 premiss in this syllogism — " this redemption pertains 
 to all men," which is the same in substance with the 
 express words of the apostle, " one died for all " — 
 may be, therefore, expanded into the following pro- 
 position : The redemption merited by the death of 
 Jesus Christ pertains to all those who, being dead 
 
The Way of Salvation. 27 
 
 in the first Adam, need restoration to life by the 
 second Adam — that is, to all men without excep- 
 tion.* And, in the nineteenth following verse of 
 the same chapter, we have a further confirmation of 
 the universality of this truth in St. Paul's declara- 
 tion : " God was in Christ, reconciling the zvorld 
 unto himself." 
 
 In the very thicket of the " things hard to be 
 understood " which crowd the central peak of St. . 
 Paul's Epistles, the fifth chapter of the Epistle to 
 the Romans, this same universal way to salvation is 
 seen threading the summits of the mysteries of the- 
 ology, so plain, so clear, so unmistakable, that even 
 " the wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err 
 therein. '' (15) "If through the offence of- one 
 many be dead " (61 noXXoi, the multitude of 
 all men): "much more the grace of God, and the 
 gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, 
 hath abounded unto many" (JiSrovS 7toA\ovZ, 
 to the same multitude). (18) "As by the offence 
 of one judgment came upon all men to condemna- 
 tion : even so by the righteousness of one the free 
 gift came upon all men unto justification of life." 
 The New York Bible Society's edition of King 
 James's Bible (minion ref. i6mo, 2d ed., 1861) here 
 refers to two parallel passages. The first is St. 
 
 * Vid. Franzelin, " De Deo," Thesis xxxvii. ; " De Volunt. 
 Salvif. Antcced." 
 
28 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 
 
 John xii. 32, "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw 
 all men unto me." The second is Heb. ii. 9, " But 
 Ave see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the 
 angels for the suffering of death, crowned with 
 glory and honor ; that he by the grace of God 
 should taste death for every man." In another 
 place St. Paul declares: "We trust in the living 
 God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of 
 those that believe."* Here the perverse interpreta- 
 tion of those who explain the universal terms used 
 in the passages cited above as referring only to 
 the whole multitude of the elect is expressly ex- 
 cluded. For, while the apostle distinctly teaches 
 that the faithful participate in the benefits of the 
 redemption in a much higher sense than other men, 
 he nevertheless declares with equal distinctness that 
 God is the Saviour of that entire multitude which 
 includes all other men as well as those who believe. 
 So also does the apostle St. John, in a number of 
 other passages besides the remarkable one quoted 
 a little above : " In him was life ; and the life was 
 the light of men " ; " That was the true Light, which 
 lighteth every man that cometh into the world " ; 
 " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the 
 sin of the world " ; " And he is the propitiation for 
 our sins : and not for ours only, but also for the 
 sins of the whole world"; " And we have seen and 
 * 1 Tim. iv. 10. 
 
The Way of Salvation. 29 
 
 do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the 
 Saviour of the world."* 
 
 Besides these passages, which are in themselves 
 perfectly clear and sufficient, there are many others 
 distinctly affirming that Christ died for many who 
 will never obtain everlasting life, and therefore with 
 equal precision excluding the false and heretical 
 doctrine that he died for the elect only. This may 
 be seen by reading the Epistles, which are ad- 
 dressed to the whole body of those who profess the 
 Christian faith, and have been received into the 
 church by baptism. Everywhere, their especial 
 happiness, as partakers of the benefits of Christ's 
 death, and their consequent obligation and encou- 
 ragement to fidelity, are enlarged upon with the 
 greatest copiousness and force. At the same time 
 they are warned of the danger to which they are 
 exposed of forfeiting all these blessings, and incur- 
 ring the judgments of God, if they draw back and 
 do not persevere. By themselves these passages 
 prove only that Christ died for a great number of 
 men besides those who are predestined to ever- 
 lasting life, at least for all who are baptized, who 
 obtain the gift of faith, and are justified. That 
 many are really included among the faithful and 
 receive the gifts of grace who are not finally saved, 
 and therefore that the number of the justified is 
 
 * John i. 4, 9, 29. 1 Ep. John ii. 2 ; iv. 14. 
 
30 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 not identical with the number of the predestined, 
 will be proved hereafter. And in that connection, 
 the proof from Scripture will be given that God 
 wills the salvation of those who are only tempora- 
 rily justified, and that Jesus Christ died for them, 
 as well as for those who persevere. This is a sub- 
 altern proposition to the more general proposition 
 which I am at present engaged in proving. Its spe- 
 cial proof is equally conclusive with that of the 
 principal proposition against the contrary proposi- 
 tion of Calvinists and Jansenists. We shall see a 
 little later that it destroys the entire Calvinistic 
 theory of particular redemption and exclusive grace 
 for the elect, and confirms the evidence otherwise 
 given of the universal extension of the decree of 
 redemption to the whole human race. Throughout 
 the entire Scriptuie, the invitations and exhorta- 
 tions addressed to all those to whom the divine 
 revelation is made known, and the declarations of 
 the willingness of God to grant remission of sins to 
 all who are penitent, are founded upon the uni- 
 versality of the mercy of God toward men. We 
 have already seen that St. Paul argues from the 
 fundamental truth of one God, the creator of all 
 men, to the universality of his merciful providence 
 over all. " There is one God, who will have all 
 men to be saved." In like manner, the same apos- 
 tle asks, with the confidence of one who appeals to 
 
The Way of Salvation, 3 1 
 
 something well known and indisputable, " Is he 
 the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the 
 Gentiles ?" And again he declares that " the same 
 Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. 
 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the 
 Lord shall be saved." * The name " Father of 
 mercies " belongs, therefore, to God by virtue of a 
 common relation of all men to him, and not by vir- 
 tue of a special relation of some favored and select 
 number of men. The Psalms are crowded with 
 aspirations of praise to God for his goodness and 
 mercy, and the key to the proper interpretation of 
 all these inspired breathings of the royal Psalmist 
 of Israel is given by one remarkable passage : 
 " The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are 
 over all his works" f 
 
 This proposition is absolutely universal, and af- 
 firms that goodness flows out of an essential attri- 
 bute of God upon all rational creatures without 
 exception. So far as concerns men, while their 
 earthly probation lasts, this goodness takes the spe- 
 cific form of mercy toward sinners. " As I live, 
 saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death 
 of the wicked ; but that the wicked turn from his 
 way and live." % " The Lord is not slack concern- 
 ing his promise, as some men count slackness ; but 
 
 *Rom. iii. 29 ; x. 12, 13. f Ps. cxliv. (Prot. cxlv.) 9. 
 
 % Ezcch. xxxiii. II. 
 
32 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any 
 should perish, but that all should come to repent- 
 ance." * 
 
 It must be plain to every attentive reader of the 
 foregoing pages, especially if he be already familiar 
 with the Holy Scriptures, that the most special 
 acts of goodness and mercy on the part of God 
 •toward any of his rational creatures are merely ap- 
 plications of a universal good-will toward all, which 
 is necessarily implied in the act of creation, and 
 proceeds from the essential nature of God. The 
 ultimate reason why God has so highly exalted 
 St. Michael the Archangel, Abraham, David, the 
 Blessed Virgin Mary, is, that he is good to his crea- 
 tures ; he loves that which he has made. Although 
 it is not necessary that God should create any ra- 
 tional beings, yet it is necessary that, if he deter- 
 mines to create them, he should love them, and 
 provide them with sufficient means to attain their 
 end. In this respect all are equal before God, and 
 must be impartially treated. The discrimination 
 among creatures is one which respects the kind and 
 amount of good to be conferred on each genus, spe- 
 cies, or individual, and not their antecedent divi- 
 sion into two classes, the elect and the reprobate, 
 the first created for happiness, and the second for 
 misery. The only genera and species of rational 
 
 * 2 Pet. iii. 9. 
 
The Way of Salvation. $$ 
 
 creatures whose existence is known to us are 
 angels and men. The goodness of God toward the 
 angels was shown by giving them a perfect nature 
 adorned with grace, and the opportunity of attain- 
 ing the vision of God by a short probation, but 
 without any possibility of reversing their choice 
 when it was once made. It was, therefore, the an- 
 tecedent will of God that all the angels should be 
 saved, and those who forfeited salvation were ex- 
 cluded from it purely on account of their own wil- 
 ful and deliberate disobedience. The goodness of 
 God towards men was shown, in the first instance, 
 by the constitution of our progenitors in the state 
 of original justice, which was to become the stable 
 and perpetual inheritance of their posterity, if they 
 obeyed the commandment of God. In the second 
 instance it was shown by the concession of a medi- 
 ator who should open a way of restitution to man- 
 kind after the fall. Undoubtedly the grace con- 
 ferred both in the first and in the second instance 
 was gratuitous, and therefore might have been 
 withheld altogether, or withheld from one portion 
 of the human race and conferred on another por- 
 tion. The same is true of the angels also. But if 
 God had selected some angels or some men from 
 the whole multitude, by an antecedent decree, for 
 the exclusive enjoyment of sanctifying grace and 
 the light of glory, he must have made some other 
 
34 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 benevolent provision for the rest of the angels and 
 of men, whom he had passed by in this decree of 
 election. If the only benevolent provision which 
 he determined to make for the angels and for men 
 was the provision of a way to attain deinc beati- 
 tude, then all angels and all men must have been 
 included in this one provision. On this supposi- 
 tion the essential goodness of God determines him 
 to confer celestial glory on every angel without ex- 
 ception, unless he sins. Likewise, in the case of 
 Adam, the essential goodness of God determines 
 him to confer on his posterity, without any excep- 
 tion, celestial glory, unless he sins or they sin. 
 
 The theory of the strict or supralapsarian Cal- 
 vinists is, therefore, plainly contrary to the doctrine 
 of the Scripture and to the dictates of reason. It 
 denies an essential attribute of God — to wit, his 
 goodness — and therefore subverts the total concep- 
 tion of God as most perfect Being. According to 
 this theory, God willed antecedently to all foresight 
 of sin or innocence, the salvation of the elect 
 angels and men, and the damnation of the repro- 
 bate. For this end he decreed the obedience of 
 the elect and the sins of the reprobate as the fit 
 and proper means to accomplish his purpose. The 
 sin of Adam was decreed in order to plunge all 
 mankind into eternal ruin, and the death of Christ 
 in order to rescue and save the elect. I do not 
 
The Way of Salvation. 35 
 
 think it necessary to say anything more about this 
 theory. If there are any who can regard it with 
 complacency, I give them up as beyond the reach 
 of argument. The Synod of Dort, it is well known, 
 rejected it, and the great majority of Calvinists, as 
 well as the Lutherans, adopt the milder and less 
 repulsive sublapsarian doctrine. According to this 
 latter theory, God willed, antecedently to the fore- 
 knowledge of sin, the salvation of all angels and 
 all men. The decree of election and reprobaticui, 
 therefore, is consequent to the sin of Adam, and 
 regards men as already lapsed into the state of ori- 
 ginal sin. All being alike unworthy of the kingdom 
 of heaven, God may, without any-derogation either 
 to his justice or goodness, leave them as they are, 
 without any second provision for their salvation. 
 In his pure mercy, he chooses a certain number 
 whom he wills to save through the Mediator whom 
 he predestines, passing over the remainder. The 
 Jansenists and a certain portion of the Calvinists 
 teach that Jesus Christ died for this elect portion 
 of mankind alone, although many other Calvinists, 
 with the great body of Protestants, admit that he 
 died for all men, as the Scriptures so plainly 
 declare. 
 
 This sublapsarian doctrine is far less intolerable 
 than the theory of the supralapsarians. It does 
 honor to the moral sense, and to the respect for the 
 
o 
 
 6 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 obvious and traditional interpretation of the Scrip- 
 ture of those who have adopted it, that they have 
 rejected the pure and simple Calvinistic theory, as 
 presented in all its naked deformity. Nevertheless, 
 the sublapsarian theory is essentially no better in 
 itself, and contains the same skeleton under its 
 cloak, only that it is more clumsily put together. 
 Moderate Calvinism is what the Germans call a 
 HalbJieit — that is, a half-theory, the segment of a 
 circle, or the frustum of a cone. It denies the uni- 
 versal benevolence of God towards the human spe- 
 cies under one order of providence, and that order 
 the very one specially characterized by mercy, while 
 it affirms this benevolence in every other order, and 
 declares that it proceeds from an essential attribute 
 of God. Such a theory is intrinsically repugnant 
 and self-contradictory. Either God is necessarily 
 determined by his essential goodness to good-will 
 toward his rational creatures, or he is not. If he is, 
 he must have a good-will toward every rational 
 creature without exception. If he is not, then he 
 is indifferent toward good-will and ill-will, and 
 therefore free to manifest the one toward a portion 
 of his creatures, and the other toward another por- 
 tion. But if God is supposed to decree good and 
 evil to two separate classes of men, antecedently to 
 any free acts of their own, it must be supposed 
 that he does this because he is essentially indifferent. 
 
The Way of Salvation, 37 
 
 to a benevolent or a malevolent will. It is, therefore, 
 more consistent to suppose that all sin and conse- 
 quent misery in the universe is caused by a male- 
 volent will of God, than to suppose it in the sole 
 case of fallen man. Moreover, this theory implies 
 that the elect are moved toward salvation, and the 
 reprobate toward damnation, by a necessary and 
 irresistible impulse. And, if this is so, it is more 
 consistent and logical to hold that the same was 
 true of the angels and of Adam before and in the 
 fall. The supralapsarian theory is, therefore, cohe- 
 rent and consistent with itself. It denies all created 
 freedom of will, and teaches that holiness and sin, 
 happiness and misery, are produced by the only 
 first and efficient cause — the will of God. Those 
 who are created for glory and beatitude are brought 
 to their end by a necessary and irreversible law, 
 and those who are created for ignominy and misery 
 are made to gravitate to their doom by a similar 
 law. The sublapsarian theory, after laying down 
 the contrary rule as universal, proceeds to make the 
 case of mankind after the fall an exception. Upon 
 their theory, God is universally benevolent, yet he 
 is malevolent toward all men except the elect. He 
 desires the salvation of all rational creatures by an 
 antecedent will, and decrees to give it to all, unless 
 they forfeit it by wilful sin ; yet he does not desire 
 the salvation of the reprobate, or give them the 
 
o 
 
 8 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 freedom of choice by which they can refrain from 
 sin, but dooms them before their birth to an un- 
 avoidable necessity of sinning, and to eternal tor- 
 ments from which he will not permit them to 
 escape. 
 
 There is, indeed, an appearance of saving the 
 justice and goodness of God in the statement that 
 God does not abandon the reprobate to their doom 
 by a decree antecedent to the foresight of sin, but 
 subsequent to the foresight of original sin, in which 
 all men are involved by the fall of Adam. God, it 
 is said, wills the salvation of all men, considered 
 as included in the first covenant made with Adam, 
 and really provided for the salvation of all men by 
 that covenant. But when Adam fell, the covenant 
 was broken, mankind was ruined, and God was not 
 obliged by his justice or goodness to provide a re- 
 demption from the effects of the fall. If in his infi- 
 nite mercy he chose to rescue and save some men, 
 in preferring these he committed no act of in- 
 justice against the others whom he passed over. 
 This is most true, if understood in an orthodox 
 and Catholic sense, and entirely conformed to the 
 doctrine of Holy Scripture. But in the sense of 
 the Lutherans, Calvinists, and Jansenists, it is most 
 false, as an exposition of that sense will clearly 
 show. 
 
 According to this heretical doctrine, the state of 
 
The Way of Salvation. 39 
 
 original justice was nothing more than the natural 
 integrity and rectitude in which God created Adam 
 as a perfect man, with the essential and integral 
 attributes and circumstances due to his human 
 nature. He could not, according to his own wis- 
 dom and goodness, have created him in any differ- 
 ent or inferior state — in any state in which his facul- 
 ties were not proportioned to the attainment of 
 the beatific vision in "the kingdom of glory. By 
 the fall he became essentially and totally evil and 
 depraved, incapable of doing any actions or elicit- 
 ing any volitions which are not sinful. All his 
 posterity are conceived and born in this totally 
 depraved and sinful state, and made actual sinners 
 from the beginning of their existence, without any 
 power to the contrary. They are consequently 
 doomed to the fire of hell from the first instant 
 of their conception, and compelled to do nothing 
 while they live but add new torments to those 
 they have inherited by generation from Adam. 
 
 This theory is irreconcilable with the doctrine of 
 the universal good-will of God to his rational crea- 
 tures. Every human soul is created immediately 
 by God. If he creates it with a necessity of sin- 
 ning, and suffering in consequence the eternal pri- 
 vation of all good, he has no good-will towards it, 
 but, on the contrary, wills only the greatest possible 
 evil to it from the very beginning of its existence. 
 
4-0 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 It is a sophistical evasion, as well as a cruel mockery 
 of the moral sense and right feelings of the human* 
 heart, to say that the unhappy soul is doomed to 
 this hopeless misery on account of the sin of Adam 
 imputed to it. The soul comes fresh from the 
 creative hand of God, and by the fact of being 
 created contracts all the essential relations of a 
 rational creature toward the Creator. But the 
 very act of subjecting it to -such an imputation is 
 a subversion of its most essential relation to God. 
 It is the infliction of the greatest possible evil 
 upon it before it has had a probation, before it has 
 done anything to deserve punishment, before it is 
 capable of a free moral act. It is, moreover, a 
 contradiction in terms to assert such an imputation 
 of the act of one individual to another individual. 
 It cannot be done really, and a merely nominal im- 
 putation is a legal fiction, which is contrary to all 
 justice. But the absurdity of this theory does not 
 stop here. Total depravity destroys the moral 
 nature, annihilates freedom of choice, and thus puts 
 an end to the power of sinning and to all accounta- 
 bility. One who is incapable of doing anything 
 else except sinning is in the category of a blind 
 man in respect to sight, a cripple in respect to 
 walking, an idiot in respect to rational activity. 
 The unhappy reprobate stumbles blindly, helpless- 
 ly, stupidly, down the descent of his miserable life 
 
The Way of Sa/vatiou. 41 
 
 into the open grave, and through the grave into 
 everlasting woe, as a blind and lame idiot who had 
 been carried up to the top of the Matterhorn might 
 stumble over its slippery crest into the abyss be- 
 neath. It is idle to pretend to reconcile such a 
 theory as this with the universal benevolence of 
 God. The only consistent Calvinist is the merciless 
 supralapsarian, who asserts only the sovereignty of 
 God, and reduces his goodness to a mere arbitrary 
 will of bringing the elect to glory, all the rest of 
 the rational creation being wholly excluded from 
 the love of God. 
 
 It is true, nevertheless, and most plainly taught 
 in the Holy Scriptures, that the redemption of 
 Jesus Christ is a work of pure grace and mercy. 
 It is therefore certain that God might have left 
 mankind unredeemed, or might have redeemed 
 only a certain elect number. It is impossible to 
 reconcile this doctrine of Holy Scripture with that 
 other equally clear doctrine of the same Scripture 
 that God loves all his creatures, on the Calvinistic 
 theory of original justice and original sin. * There 
 must be, therefore, another and a true doctrine 
 which is in harmony with all that the Holy 
 Scripture teaches respecting the necessity of the 
 divine benevolence and the gratuitousness of the 
 divine grace. This is the Catholic doctrine — that 
 original justice, with the annexed promise of the 
 
42 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 beatific vision, was a gratuitous and supernatural 
 gift of God to the human race in Adam. This 
 supernatural gift was made to depend on Adam's 
 obedience, and was forfeited by his sin. Human 
 nature was not totally depraved by this loss, but 
 despoiled and changed into something worse, 
 though still retaining all its essentials, and there- 
 fore remaining essentially good. Unquestionably, 
 God might have carried out to the fullest extent 
 the penalty which he had before denounced to 
 Adam : " In the day that thou eatest thereof thou 
 shalt surely die." He might have deprived our 
 first parents of life immediately, and thus have de- 
 stroyed the whole human race in its root. Or he 
 might have left them on the earth to propagate 
 their species under the changed and deteriorated 
 conditions of the state of lapsed nature in which 
 we are now all born, without providing a redemp- 
 tion and restoration through a mediator. But in 
 this latter case he must have manifested in some 
 way his benevolent will toward all those whom he 
 created under these conditions, by virtue of that 
 essential relation which all creatures bear to their 
 Creator. The human race could not have been 
 continued, with its history, its development 
 through a regular series of ages, and its final con- 
 summation, without some end worthy of the w?s- 
 dom and goodness of God, to which he would have 
 
The Way of Salvation. 43 
 
 conducted the race and the individuals belonging 
 to it by his merciful providence. In point of fact, 
 he did decree and promise a redemption ; and, since 
 it was solely and exclusively by that order of pro- 
 vidence which is based on the redemption that he 
 made any provision whatever for carrying out his 
 good-will to all the posterity of Adam, they were 
 all necessarily included in that redemption. So far 
 as we know, our birth and existence are due merely 
 to this decree of redemption through the Mediator. 
 Our first parents were called to account for their 
 sin, received their penance, were forgiven and re- 
 stored to grace, with the promise of a Redeemer 
 from the seed of the woman, before they were sent 
 out of Paradise to begin the toils of their allotted 
 portion of earthly life, and to beget children who 
 should inherit a similar allotment, with its pro- 
 bation of labor and trial, and its annexed blessing 
 of grace and hope through the promised Redeemer. 
 It is therefore probable that we owe our existence 
 and all our natural enjoyments, the green fields, 
 the blue sky, the fresh air, and all else that is fair 
 and pleasant, to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 
 who has saved this world from the curse which the 
 sin of Adam brought upon it, and from total de- 
 struction, by sprinkling upon it his precious blood. 
 For myself, I am firmly convinced with St. 
 Athanasius, Suarez, and other eminent theologians, 
 
44 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 that the Incarnation of the Word was decreed be- 
 fore the foresight of the fall. If this be so, the 
 universe, and especially the human race, was only 
 created in view of, and with reference to, Christ. It 
 is therefore on his account, and for the sake of the 
 eternal love of the Father to him, that we received 
 the first communication of grace in the Paradisaic 
 state. For the same reason it was impossible that 
 the human race should be frustrated of its super- 
 natural end. It was the predestined race of the 
 Incarnation, and human nature was the predestined 
 nature of God. The Omnipotent Word could not 
 permit his own race and his own nature to be 
 finally ruined and destroyed. He redeemed us, 
 therefore, because by the mere fact of our human 
 nature we are his own blood-relations. The re- 
 demption is as wide in its extent as the relation- 
 ship. But the relationship of blood to the Divine 
 Redeemer extends to every individual of the 
 human race, and therefore the redemption also. 
 In a wider sense, this relationship to the Word 
 Incarnate exists in all rational creatures, and, so 
 far as their nature admits of it, in all created 
 things ; and in him, therefore, is the ultimate 
 reason of their existence and motive of all the good 
 conferred upon them by their Creator. This is 
 taught by St. Paul in a very distinct and explicit 
 mrnner in the Epistle to the Colossians : "His 
 
The Way of Salvation. 45 
 
 dear Son [the Son of his love, Marg.~\ ... is 
 the image of the invisible God, the first-born of 
 every creature : for by him were all things created, 
 that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible 
 and invisible, whether they be thrones, or domin- 
 ions, or principalities, or powers : all things were 
 created by him, and for hint : and he is before all 
 things, and by him all things consist. And he is 
 the head of the body, the church : who is the be- 
 ginning, the first-born from the dead ; that in all 
 things he might have the pre-eminence. For it 
 pleased the Father that in him should all fulness 
 dwell ; and, having made peace through the blood 
 of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto 
 himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in 
 earth, or things in heaven." * St. John declares in 
 the preface of his Gospel concerning the Word : 
 That was the true Light, which light eth every 
 man that cometh into the world." f St. Paul, 
 again, in his sermon on the Hill of Mars at Athens, 
 teaches that the supernatural and merciful provi- 
 dence of God embraces all men, all times and 
 places, and all events on the earth, and connects 
 this truth with the very idea of one God the 
 creator of all things. " God that made the world 
 and all things therein . . . hath made of one 
 blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face 
 
 * Coloss. i. 13-20. f John i. 9. 
 
46 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 of the earth, and hath determined the times before 
 appointed, and the bounds of their habitation ; that 
 they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel 
 after him, and find him, though he be not far from 
 every one of us : for in him Ave live, and move, 
 and have our being ; as certain also of your own 
 poets have said, For we are also his offspring." * 
 The same apostle, in another sermon, or rather 
 impromptu address, to the people of Lystra, refers 
 all common, natural blessings enjoyed by the 
 heathen to the same source — that is, the merciful 
 providence of God for the salvation of men : " We 
 preach unto you that ye should turn from these 
 vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, 
 and earth, and the sea, and all things that are 
 therein : who in times past suffered all nations to 
 walk in their own ways. Nevertheless he left not 
 himself without zvitness, in that he did good, and 
 gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, 
 filling our hearts with food and gladness." f 
 
 There are none, therefore, who are excluded 
 from the decree of salvation and redemption by a 
 decree of reprobation. Those who are deprived of 
 the light of revelation are not on that account 
 abandoned by God and under a necessity of sin- 
 ning and incurring eternal torments. Free-will 
 remains even in the state of fallen nature, and by it 
 * Acts xvii. 24-2S. f Acts xiv - I 5 _I 7- 
 
The Way of Salvation. 47 
 
 the heathen are able to perform acts of natural 
 virtue. They have a natural law, as St. Paul 
 teaches in the Epistle to the Romans : " For when 
 the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature 
 the things contained in the law, these, having not 
 the law, are a law unto themselves : which show 
 the work of the law written in their hearts, their 
 conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts 
 the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one 
 a'nother." * It is not my purpose to discuss more 
 particularly the questions which relate to the con- 
 dition of those who are out of the ordinary way of 
 salvation without any fault of their own, or who 
 die in the state of original sin only, without any 
 actual sin. I have proved clearly enough from the 
 Scriptures and from general principles that no 
 rational creature can be excluded from the merciful 
 providence and good-will of God, except by his own 
 free and voluntary act. All those, therefore, who 
 are deprived of the opportunity of receiving the 
 grace of regeneration in Christ, and attaining the 
 kingdom of heaven, are in some way provided for 
 by the goodness and mercy of God. No argument 
 can be derived from their case against the universal 
 operation of the divine benevolence. Nor is there 
 any valid objection furnished by it against the 
 doctrine that God decreed to provide in Christ a 
 
 ""'Rom. ii. 14, 15. 
 
4^ The Way of Salvation. 
 
 redemption universal in its extension for the human 
 race. There is no human being, adult or infant, 
 who is excluded from the grace of regeneration and 
 eternal salvation by any decree of antecedent re- 
 probation. Those who fail of it without their own 
 fault fail through the operation of second causes. 
 Each and every one of them is as capable of receiv- 
 ing the divine grace, in case it were applied to him, 
 as any of those who are actually regenerated. All 
 men are generated in the initial and inchoate order 
 of grace and salvation, because redemption is 
 generic and not individual, and the Redeemer 
 promised to our first parents becomes ipso facto the 
 Redeemer of the entire human race. Therefore 
 every one to whom the way of salvation is pro- 
 posed can be certain that this way is open to him, 
 and that there is no hidden decree of reprobation 
 recorded against him which renders him incapable 
 of receiving or persevering in grace and obtaining 
 heaven. This has been amply proved from the 
 Holy Scriptures. There are, however, a few obscure 
 and difficult passages in the Scriptures which appear 
 to those who have been used to read the Bible 
 through Calvinistic spectacles to have a very dark 
 and terrifying aspect, and to overshadow some part 
 of the human race with the gloomy cloud of repro- 
 bation. I will therefore examine these passages, and 
 explain their true sense before proceeding further. 
 
The Way of Salvation. 49 
 
 The first of these passages occurs in what is 
 called the Protevangelium, or Primary Gospel, re- 
 corded by Moses in the third chapter of Genesis : 
 " I will put enmity between thee and the woman, 
 and between thy seed and her seed." * What is 
 the seed of the serpent ? Evidently not a distinct 
 race of human demons generated by the devil. It 
 is the multitude of the wicked, in whom the like- 
 ness of the devil is formed by their voluntary recep- 
 tion of, and obedience to, the false principles and 
 maxims which he suggests to them. Here again 
 the American Bible Society furnishes a number of 
 most satisfactory references to other texts, which 
 explain the meaning of this one in accordance with 
 the orthodox sense of the church : " But when he 
 saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to 
 his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of 
 vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath 
 to come?" "He answered and said unto them, 
 He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man ; 
 the field is the world ; the good seed are the chil- 
 dren of the kingdom ; but the tares are the children 
 of the wicked one ; the enemy that sowed them is the 
 devil." " Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, 
 hypocrites ! . . . Ye serpents, ye generation of 
 vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell % " 
 H Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto 
 
 *Gen. iii. 15. 
 
50 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of 
 sin. . . . If ye were Abraham's children, ye 
 would do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek 
 to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth. 
 . . . Ye do the deeds of your father. . . . 
 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your 
 father ye will do. He was a murderer from the be- 
 ginning, and abode not in the truth, because there 
 is no truth in him." " But Elymas the sorcerer [a 
 chief one among the spiritists of those days] witn- 
 stood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from 
 the faith. Then Saul, filled with the Holy Ghost, 
 set his eyes on him, and said, O full of all subtilty 
 and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy 
 of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert 
 the right ways of the Lord ? " " He that committeth 
 sin is of the devil"* This last text sums up and 
 explains the whole series. A man becomes a child 
 of the devil, or one of the seed of the old serpent, 
 by sinning. I will prove hereafter that some of 
 these, and even the worst of them, are apostates 
 from grace and from faith, who have been once 
 justified and sanctified, and for whom Christ is ex- 
 pressly declared to have shed his blood. It has 
 already been proved that God desires their con- 
 version and invites them to repentance. It is 
 
 *Matt. iii. 7, xiii. 37, and xxiii. 33 ; John viii. 34 ; Arts xiii. 8 ; 
 1 John iii. 8, with the several contexts. 
 
The Way of Salvation. 51 
 
 therefore purely their own free act which makes 
 them children of the devil, and not a sentence of 
 reprobation under which they are born. 
 
 The second difficulty is found in the case of Esau 
 and Jacob, cited by St. Paul in the ninth chapter 
 of the Epistle to the Romans : " When Rebecca 
 also had conceived by one, even by our father 
 Isaac (for the children being not yet born, neither 
 having done any good or evil, that the purpose of 
 God according to election might stand, not of 
 works, but of him that calleth), it was said unto 
 her, The elder shall serve the younger." So far as 
 the election of Jacob and the rejection of Esau are 
 considered in reference to their own persons, it is 
 evident from the very words quoted and from the 
 entire narrative of Genesis that these relate to 
 merely temporal matters. Esau, although the first- 
 born of the twins, was put aside, and Jacob pre- 
 ferred to the dignity of patriarch of the chosen 
 people. St. Paul declares that this was done, not 
 on account of any worthiness in Jacob or unworthi- 
 ness in Esau, but according to the sovereign will of 
 God. And when, in another place (Heb. xii. 17) — a 
 passage often cited to prove that some persons can- 
 not repent if they try ever so much — the apostle 
 says that "when he would have inherited the bless- 
 ing, he was rejected : for he found no place of repen- 
 tance, though he sought it carefully with tears," it 
 
52 The Way of Salvation, 
 
 is plainly the blessing of the birthright that is ex- 
 clusively referred to, and not the forgiveness of sin. 
 The passage from Malachy which St. Paul proceeds 
 to quote in the Epistle to the Romans, " Jacob 
 have I loved, but Esau have I hated," will be seen 
 by any one who will read the prophecy to refer to 
 the difference of God's dealings with the Jews and 
 Idumaeans. The former were restored to their own 
 land, after they had been sent into captivity for their 
 sins, by an act of grace and mercy. The latter 
 were exterminated, on account of their sins, by 
 an act of justice. " Jacob have I loved " means, 
 therefore, Jacob's posterity have I treated with 
 special mercy ; " Esau have I hated " means, Esau's 
 posterity I have treated with a just severity. 
 When the apostle, then, asks the question in the 
 person of an objector, " Is there unrighteousness 
 with God?" the sense of it is: When two classes 
 of persons or two individuals have equally sinned, 
 and equally deserve punishment, is it unjust for 
 God to be more merciful to the one than to the 
 other? " God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I 
 will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I 
 will have compassion." This was said to Moses 
 when he asked for a special manifestation of the 
 presence of God with the children of Israel, and 
 desired to see his glory. His request was so far 
 granted that God gave him some kind of a super- 
 
The Way of Salvation. . 53 
 
 natural vision of his goodness. It evidently means 
 that God bestows his gratuitous and supernatural 
 graces according to his own will, and that man has 
 no power to deserve or attain them by his own natu- 
 ral qualities or efforts. This is the deduction made 
 by the apostle : " So then it is not of him that 
 willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that 
 showeth mercy." All this forms a part of St. Paul's 
 argument on the general thesis of his Epistle. This 
 thesis is : that vocation to the faith and justification 
 were given both to the Jews and the Gentiles, gratui- 
 tously, and for the sake of Jesus Christ, and were not 
 merited by any natural descent from Abraham and 
 outward observance of the Mosaic Law, or by any 
 observance of the natural law. 
 
 A third difficulty follows immediately upon the 
 second, in the instance of Pharaoh. " For the Scrip- 
 ture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose 
 have I raised thee up, that I might show my power 
 in thee, and that my name might be declared 
 throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy 
 on whom he will, and whom he will he hardeneth." 
 It is not said that God created Pharaoh to show his 
 power by drowning him in the Red Sea, but that he 
 " raised him up," or, as other versions have it, consti- 
 tuted, placed, or preserved him. God willed that 
 Pharaoh should listen to Moses, embrace the true 
 religion, obey his commandments, and attain salva- 
 
54 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 tion. By his own wilful pride and obstinacy, he 
 turned all the temporal and spiritual advantages 
 which were given him for his own good into the 
 occasion of his own signal destruction. Moses says 
 expressly that he hardened his own heart. After 
 he had hardened his own heart, God hardened him 
 still more. That is, God, foreknowing that he would 
 be further hardened by reason of the obstinacy 
 which he had caused in himself, by a certain course 
 of his providence toward him, and would madly 
 oppose himself to his will, pursued that very course 
 toward him, and gave him the opportunity of carry- 
 ing out the purposes of his proud will, until he 
 rushed upon the punishment and ruin which He had 
 prepared for him. St. Paul gives this as an instance 
 under a general law of divine providence. " Whom 
 he will he hardeneth.'' Some persons who have 
 provoked the indignation of the Almighty are 
 placed in circumstances which allow them the oppor- 
 tunity of sinning with a high hand, and of going on 
 in a successful and prosperous career of crime. He 
 does not interfere to prevent efficaciously their arriv- 
 ing at an obdurate and final impenitence, either by 
 giving them a continuous series of special graces, or 
 by thwarting their undertakings. And, at last, he 
 makes them terrible examples of his justice and 
 severity. " He hath mercy on whom he will." 
 Other persons, equally or more undeserving, are 
 
The Way of Salvation. 55 
 
 checked and stopped in their career of sin, and in 
 many instances become eminent saints and servants 
 of God. 
 
 Still another of these difficulties occurs in the very- 
 answer which the apostle makes to an objection 
 against his statement respecting the case of Pharaoh : 
 " Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find 
 fault ? for who hath resisted his will ? Nay but, 
 man, who art thou that repliest against God ? 
 Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, 
 Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the pot- 
 ter power over the clay, of the same lump to make 
 one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor ? " 
 The explanation of this passage depends entirely on 
 the understanding of the point of comparison be- 
 tween mankind and clay. It is not, as wholly inert 
 and passive under the potter's hand, that clay is an 
 apt figure of sinful men under the controlling power 
 of God's providence, and this is not, therefore, the 
 point of the comparison. The want of any deter- 
 mining force in the clay by which it can naturally- 
 become a vessel of honor is that to which St. Paul 
 compares the lack of natural and positive aptitude 
 to sanctity and glory in man. God alone can fashion 
 human nature into his own similitude in glory. This 
 he does, in the case of " the vessels of mercy which 
 he had afore prepared unto glory," but not with- 
 out their free co-operation with grace, since, as the 
 
56 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 apostle strongly insists in this and other chapters of 
 the Epistle, these vessels of mercy Avere those from 
 among both Jews and Gentiles who believed in Jesus 
 Christ and thus obtained " the righteousness which 
 is of faith." So, also, the vessels made " unto dis- 
 honor" are expressly declared by the apostle to 
 have incurred this ignominy through their unbelief, 
 " for they stumbled at that stumbling-stone" — that 
 is, refused to receive their true Messias on account 
 of his humility and the requisition he made on 
 them to give up their national pride and preju- 
 dices. The apostle therefore continues, immediately 
 after the principal passage above quoted : " What 
 if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his 
 power known, endured with much long-suffering the 
 vessels of wrath fitted to destruction ? " How, and 
 by whom, fitted to destruction? By themselves, 
 through their sins and their resistance to grace, by 
 which they have given themselves that hardness 
 which renders them unfit to be fashioned into ves- 
 sels of honor. That God spares their lives, and 
 gives them the means and opportunities which they 
 abuse, is in itself an act of mercy. That he turns their 
 wicked projects and criminal acts into an indirect 
 occasion of the manifestation of his own power and 
 glory through their destruction, is an act of justice. 
 St. Paul's objector impiously accuses the justice of 
 God, because he condemns persons and acts which 
 
The Way of Salvation. 57 
 
 he has turned by his power into instruments of 
 accomplishing his own infallible decrees. For ex- 
 ample, the treason of Judas, the unbelief and 
 malice of the Jewish rulers, the cowardice and in- 
 justice of Pilate, by means of which was accom- 
 plished the crucifixion of the Lord, who thereby 
 redeemed the world. The reply of St. Paul to this 
 objection is an application of the fundamental prin- 
 ciple of the sovereignty of God over his creatures, 
 illustrated by the power of the potter over clay. 
 The potter cannot make anything essentially im- 
 possible or essentially different from the nature of 
 clay out of clay. He is bound by the laws of nature 
 and the rules of art. Neither can God exercise his 
 sovereign power in contravention of the essential 
 attributes of his own being, which are as necessary 
 laws or regulating principles of his operation, or in 
 contravention of the rules of his divine art, which 
 are moral and in harmony with the freedom of the 
 human will. He cannot, therefore, make a vessel 
 of dishonor out of any one who has not voluntarily 
 made himself fit for nothing else than ignominy and 
 destruction. But, if one has prepared himself for 
 this ignominious destination, it is the sovereign 
 right of God to bring good out of the evil which he 
 has wrought, and out of his destruction which is 
 the just recompense for it, by making both the 
 occasion of manifesting his own power and glory. 
 
58 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 This last act of God proceeds, therefore, from his 
 will as consequent upon the foresight of sin and 
 final impenitence, and not from his antecedent will. 
 For this reason, the apostle, speaking of the time 
 during which the probation of the sinner lasts, de- 
 clares that God endures him with much long-suffer- 
 ing, implying, what is elsewhere in the Scripture dis- 
 tinctly taught, that he is waiting for his repentance. 
 It is, therefore, altogether the fault of those who 
 are made vessels of dishonor that they are not 
 made vessels of honor, and not because they are 
 previously destined to dishonor. And St. Paul dis- 
 tinctly teaches this in another place, where he uses 
 the very same figure. " But in a great house there 
 are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also 
 of wood and of earth ; and some to honor, and some 
 to dishonor. If a man therefore purge himself from 
 these [sins], he shall be a vessel unto honor, sancti- 
 fied, and meet for the master's use, and prepared 
 unto every good work."* 
 
 There is still one more favorite proof-text, taken 
 by Calvinists from St. Peter, which requires to be 
 noticed. " The stone which the builders disallow- 
 ed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a 
 stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to 
 them which stumble at the word, being disobedi- 
 ent : whereunto also tJicywere appointed." 'f This text 
 is easily explained in conformity with the true 
 
 • 2 Tim. ii. 21. f 1 Peter I!. 7, C. 
 
The Way of Salvation. 59 
 
 doctrine of the Holy Scriptures as teaching, not 
 that unbelievers are appointed or predestined to 
 unbelief in order that they may be ruined, but that 
 they are appointed to stumble over that stone 
 which they have despised and rejected, as a punish- 
 ment of their unbelief. " Whosoever shall fall on 
 this stone shall be broken ; but on whomsoever it 
 shall fall, it will grind him to powder." 
 
 All these passages which appear to contain a 
 difficulty, and, as taken singly, are plausibly inter- 
 preted in their own sense by those who bring to 
 the reading of the Scripture a preconceived Cal- 
 vinistic theory, must be understood in a sense 
 which harmonizes with all the rest of the Scripture. 
 Obscure passages must be interpreted by those 
 which are perfectly plain. Ambiguous passages 
 must be interpreted in a sense consonant to rea- 
 son, natural theology, and the analogy of faith. 
 It is hardly necessary to insist on the greater con- 
 formity to reason, natural theology, and the ana- 
 logy of faith, of the interpretation here given. I 
 have also quoted other passages of Scripture which 
 are clear and easily intelligible, in which a criterion 
 for determining this interpretation as the only true 
 one is furnished. I will add one more from St. 
 James, which may be taken as the summing up of 
 the whole case, and is the more significant since this 
 apostle probably had the express intention of con- 
 
6o The Way of Salvation. 
 
 demning the false interpretation placed by heretics 
 on some passages in St. Paul's Epistle : " Let no 
 man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of 
 God ; for God cannot be tempted with evil, 
 neither tempteth he any man."* The phrase trans- 
 lated " God cannot be tempted with evil (or evils)" 
 is ambiguous in the Greek, and is rendered by St. 
 Jerome intentator malonim est — i.e., is not a tempter 
 of evils, instead of intent abUis, or untemptable. 
 This last rendering, which is the same with that 
 of King James's Version, is followed by Kenrick, 
 who, with his usual exquisite and concise wisdom, 
 explains it thus : " God is not tempted to evil, and 
 consequently does not tempt others. To solicit 
 others to sin implies personal corruption." That is to 
 say: God, as infinitely good and holy, cannot possibly 
 will any evil, or find anything pleasing to himself in 
 the evil of his creatures. Consequently, he cannot 
 become in any way the author of sin, or create any 
 rational being for sin and evil. Nothing but good 
 proceeds from his antecedent will, and, by his 
 consequent will, he can only permit sin as the free 
 act of a creature, and inflict evil on him as the just 
 and necessary consequence of his sin. And then 
 the apostle goes on to say: " Do not err, my be- 
 loved brethren [by referring evil to the antecedent 
 will of God, because no evil proceeds from it], but 
 every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, 
 '■■ St. James i. 13. 
 
The Way of Salvation. 61 
 
 and cometh clown from the Father of light, with 
 whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turn- 
 ing "; and who cannot, therefore, have two con- 
 trary wills towards his creatures — a benevolent 
 will towards some, and a malevolent will towards 
 others. 
 
 The grand fundamental doctrine of the Holy 
 Scriptures being therefore established on an im- 
 pregnable foundation, that God wills the salvation 
 of the human race as such, and that Jesus Christ 
 died to • redeem the race, we are prepared to con- 
 sider more closely the nature of the way of salva- 
 tion revealed by the Gospel. All that theory of 
 salvation which is built on the false assumption that 
 our Lord died for the elect only, and which can- 
 not subsist without it, is at once swept away, The 1 
 theory, namely, that the obedience and death of 
 the Lord contains in itself everything necessary to 
 secure the salvation of each individual who is re- 
 deemed, is proved to be false. It is admitted and 
 maintained by all orthodox Protestants, that all 
 men are born in original sin, saving certain excep- 
 tional cases, and that a very large number of the 
 human race live and die in actual sin, which is never 
 remitted either in this world or in the world to 
 come ; that is, a large part of mankind are not 
 saved. But as Christ died for all men, and there- 
 fore for those who are not saved, it follows that the 
 
62 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 salvation of any individual does not follow neces- 
 sarily from the fact that Christ died for him, and 
 that the race has been redeemed. But, if our Lord, 
 by his obedience and death, and by his personal 
 merit, fulfilled everything necessary to the justifica- 
 tion and salvation of the men for whom he died, 
 every one of these must infallibly be saved. It is 
 evident, therefore, that something else is necessary 
 to the salvation of an individual beside the mere 
 fact of his being included in that multitude for 
 whom the Lord offered up the sacrifice of his life. 
 That the obedience of Jesus Christ unto death, 
 even the death of the cross, is the only meritorious 
 cause of redemption, remission of sins, and justi- 
 fication, is indisputable. But it is equally evident 
 that other causes, subordinate to this, must concur 
 with it to actual justification and salvation. That 
 all men have been redeemed and saved by Jesus 
 Christ, as has been already proved, must therefore 
 mean, in the first instance, and irrespective of any 
 further conditions, only this : that all men have 
 been placed in a condition in which salvation is 
 possible. Original and actual sin have been made 
 remissible to the whole human race, and every indi- 
 vidual included in it. Every human being as such, 
 as a child of Adam and a member of the human 
 race, is a fit and capable subject of the grace of 
 regeneration, whose proper term is eternal life. 
 
The Way of Salvation. 6$ 
 
 But there are certain conditions to be verified in 
 each particular case ; there is a certain way of sal- 
 vation on which each one must enter, in order that 
 the redemption of the cross may be made effectual 
 to his actual deliverance from sin and its penalty, 
 whether original or actual. 
 
 What these conditions really are I shall proceed 
 to prove from the Holy Scripture, taking for grant- 
 ed, however, all that is admitted and maintained by 
 those whom I am specially addressing. Some of 
 these conditions depend on the action of God, 
 others on the operation of second causes, and still 
 others on the free acts of individuals. In the case of 
 all those to whom the way of salvation is clearly and 
 distinctly proposed, it is plain from what has been 
 already proved that their salvation is conditioned 
 only on their own free choice and action. It is cer- 
 tain that God wills their salvation, and that Jesus 
 Christ has died in order to merit and obtain salvation 
 for them. By the very supposition, there is no opera- 
 tion of second causes hindering the saving will of 
 God from taking effect upon them, unless they place 
 the obstacle themselves. For they are supposed to 
 know, or to have the power of knowing, what the 
 way of salvation is. Whatever depends on God is 
 certain to be done for them ; for he who wills the 
 end wills the means, and therefore God, who wills 
 the end — eternal salvation — will furnish sufficient 
 
64 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 means, so far as these depend on him, if they do, 
 on their part, what they are able and bound to do. 
 I do not propose to consider at all the case of those 
 who are deprived of the ordinary means of regene- 
 ration, or who are in invincible ignorance of the 
 way of salvation, through the operation of second 
 causes independent of their own will. An explana- 
 tion of the providence of God toward such persons, 
 and the reconciliation of the difficulties presented 
 by it with the doctrine of the Scripture that Christ 
 died in obedience to the will of the Father for the 
 salvation of all men, must be sought elsewhere. 
 My purpose is to explain to those who will read 
 this book ; and who already believe that salvation is 
 of the free grace of God, through the merits of the 
 Mediator, Jesus Christ, both God and man ; what is 
 the full and complete way of salvation through 
 Christ. All that I have heretofore proved has been 
 proved with reference to its special application to 
 their own individual case. I have wished to con- 
 vince them, in the first place, that they are without 
 doubt included in the saving will of God, and in the 
 intention for which the Lord and Saviour of man- 
 kind sacrificed himself on the cross. In the second 
 place, that there are other requisites, besides their 
 redemption by the cross, to their actual salvation. 
 In the third place, that some of these requisites or 
 conditions depend on their own free will. And, in 
 
The Way of Salvation. 65 
 
 the fourth place, that when they once know and de- 
 sire to enter upon the true way of salvation, all that 
 is requisite on the part of God will certainly be sup- 
 plied, if they fulfil what is requisite on their part 
 by a right use of their free will. In fine, their sal- 
 vation depends on themselves, and is fully in their 
 own power. They have only to seek sincerely to 
 find the way of salvation, and when they have found 
 it, to walk in it perseveringly, and they are sure to 
 obtain salvation from God, whose will is that they 
 may be saved, who has provided salvation for them 
 in Jesus Christ, and who will infallibly accomplish 
 in them his own saving will, by giving them grace, 
 and bringing them finally to glory and beatitude. 
 
 I have now to begin the task of explaining from 
 the Holy Scriptures what are those requisites and 
 conditions which constitute the way of salvation 
 through Jesus Christ. I will take them up one by 
 one in regular order, beginning with faith as the 
 first requisite to justification, which will be con- 
 sidered in the next chapter. 
 
CHAPTER SECOND. 
 
 Justification by Faith — The Lutheran and Calvinistic Doctrine oi 
 Justification by Faith alone refuted — The Nature and Office 
 of Faith as the first Prerequisite to Justification explained* — 
 Statement and Proof of the Catholic Doctrine concerning Sav- 
 ing Faith. 
 
 THAT man is "justified by faith " is a theologi- 
 cal axiom. But even axioms are worthless 
 unless their terms are clearly defined. It is there- 
 fore absolutely necessary to define the true sense 
 and meaning of the term faith as it is used in the 
 Holy Scripture. I will first state the definition, 
 and afterwards prove from Scripture that it is the 
 true and correct definition. Faith is that act by 
 which the intellect, aided by grace, firmly assents to 
 the truth which God reveals, because he reveals it. 
 
 The most essential part of this definition, so far 
 as my present purpose is concerned, is that which 
 fixes upon faith the sense of belief in truth revealed 
 by God. It is obvious enough that it is commonly 
 used in this sense. The objective matter which 
 terminates the act of believing is called " The 
 Faith." One who elicits an act, of faith is said to 
 believe. Throughout the New Testament, as well 
 
 66 
 
The Way of S a hat ion. 67 
 
 as in all common Christian parlance, these terms 
 are used as correlative. This fact is by itself suf- 
 ficient to fix the technical sense of the term faith, 
 when it denotes the first essential prerequisite and 
 condition of justification. Whoever asserts that it 
 has another sense, is loaded with the whole bur- 
 den of proof. Until the Calvinist adduces clear 
 proof from the Scripture that justifying faith is 
 something distinct from belief in revealed truth, he 
 is 'entitled to no attention, we are not bound to re- 
 fute him, nor are we bound to give any other 
 reason for our own definition, beyond the common 
 and ordinary acceptation of terms in the inspired 
 and uninspired documents of the Christian religion. 
 
 Nevertheless, as we write for the sake of instruct- 
 ing enquirers after truth, and not merely for confut- 
 ing or silencing its adversaries, we will give our 
 candid readers a clear exposition of the nature of 
 justifying faith, from the Scripture itself, and in 
 the language of the inspired apostles of Christ. 
 
 The most splendid description of the divine ex- 
 cellence and effects of faith ever couched in the 
 poor language of men, is to be found in the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews. It is the theme of this most sub- 
 lime of all the compositions of St. Paul, from the 
 beginning to the end, and I earnestly exhort every 
 reader who wishes to understand fully the argu- 
 ment of this chapter to read it through atten- 
 
68 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 tively and at once, in order that he may see the 
 connection of thought and reasoning between its 
 various parts, and grasp its general idea. The 
 apostle begins by declaring that God " has in these 
 last days spoken to us by his Son." The author 
 and the medium of divine revelation are here pre- 
 sented, with the implication that the revelation 
 which was inchoate and imperfect under the Old 
 Law, has been consummated and completed by 
 Jesus Christ. The apostle begins the second chap- 
 ter by the practical inference that " therefore we 
 ought to give the more earnest heed to the things 
 which we have heard "; and in the third chapter 
 warns the Hebrew Christians not to imitate the 
 example of their fathers, who were shut out of the 
 promised land, and " could not enter in because of 
 unbelief." Continuing the same subject in the 
 fourth chapter, he says that " the word preached 
 did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in 
 them that heard it," and concludes with this ex- 
 hortation : " Seeing then that we have a great high- 
 priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the 
 Son of God, let us hold fast our profession." 
 
 After reproaching them with their dulness and 
 weakness of faith, by reason of which, he tells them 
 at the end of the fifth chapter, " ye have need that 
 one teach you again which be the first principles of 
 the oracles of God," he exhorts them, in the sixth, 
 
The Way of Salvation. 69 
 
 to " be not slothful, but followers of them who 
 through faith and patience inherit the promises." 
 In this connection he brings out the ground of the 
 infallible certitude of faith, which is the veracity of 
 God and the clearness of the revelation which he 
 has made of the truths believed by the faithful. 
 "God, willing more abundantly to show unto the 
 heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, 
 confirmed it by an oath : that by two immutable 
 things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we 
 might have a strong consolation." In the tenth 
 chapter he makes another exhortation to firm faith 
 in the divine truths, chiefly relating to the Incarna- 
 tion and Redemption, which he has been continu 
 ally developing from the beginning of the Epistle. 
 " Let us draw near with a true heart in full assur- 
 ance of faith. . . . Let us hold fast the profes- 
 sion of our faith without wavering. . . . Now 
 the just shall live by faith ; but if any man draw 
 back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But 
 we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, 
 but of them that believe to the saving of the soul." 
 
 The teaching of St. Paul concerning faith culmi- 
 nates in the eleventh chapter, which he begins by a 
 descriptive definition of faith. " Now faith is the 
 substance of things hoped for, the evidence of 
 things not seen." This translation is as good and 
 literal a rendering as we can have of the Greek, and 
 
jo The Way of Salvation. 
 
 agrees closely with the Latin. The idea presented 
 is perfectly clear — viz., that faith is that light which 
 gives the human intellect a certain, subjective ap- 
 prehension of the objective realities of the super- 
 natural order. In plainer language, faith makes 
 real to the mind of man the revealed truths and 
 mysteries of God. To borrow Dr. Newman's ex- 
 pression, it is a " real assent " to truths about divine 
 things which are either dimly visible or totally in- 
 visible to the naked eye of reason. I have, there- 
 fore, demonstrated the truth and correctness of the 
 definition which I gave of faith at the beginning of 
 this chapter — a definition which is essentially the 
 same with that given by St. Paul, differing from it 
 only in its substitution of scientific for descriptive 
 terms. 
 
 The apostle goes on to say that " through faith 
 we understand that the worlds were framed by the 
 word of God, so that things which are seen were 
 not made of things which do appear." This is an 
 illustration of the definition already given. Faith 
 is belief in revealed truth, and one of the first 
 doctrines of revealed truth is the creation of the 
 world out of nothing by the power of God. The 
 apostle then cites Abel as an example of faith, 
 evidently because of the profession which he made 
 of his belief in the Redeemer to come, through his 
 bloody sacrifice, lie next cites Enoch, and gives 
 
The Way of Salvation. 71 
 
 an indirect and inferential proof of his faith, which 
 furnishes us with another most clear and irrefrag- 
 able evidence of the real nature of faith, as well as 
 with a succinct statement of its formal object. He 
 proves that Enoch had faith, from the testimony 
 of Scripture that he pleased God. " But without 
 faith it is impossible to please him : for he that 
 cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is 
 a rezuarder of them that diligently seek him." The 
 brilliant constellation of martyrs, prophets, and 
 saints to whom St. Paul directs our gaze in lan- 
 guage of unequalled eloquence throughout the 
 whole of this chapter, are examples of the same 
 firm belief in the word and truth of God, revealing 
 to them the supernatural blessings contained in the 
 Incarnation, Redemption, and Resurrection of the 
 Son of God, and in the divine economy of grace. 
 The twelfth chapter is an application of the lessons 
 taught by the faith of the fathers to their children, 
 the Hebrew Christians, and it winds up by the 
 exhortation : " See that ye refuse not him that 
 speaketh : for if they escaped not who refused him 
 that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, 
 if we turn away from him that speaketh from 
 heaven." 
 
 I have already quoted enough from the doctrinal 
 teaching of St. Paul to fully answer my purpose. 
 But I will add one more passage equally full and 
 
72 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 strong from another Epistle. In the tenth chapter 
 of the Epistle to the Roman Church, the apostle 
 expressly describes that faith which is the root 
 and ground of true justification, as distinguished 
 from the pretended justice which is based on a 
 mere outward observance of Jewish rites, or on 
 purely natural virtue. " The righteousness which 
 is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine 
 heart, Who shall ascend into heaven ? etc. But 
 what saith it ? The word is nigh thee, even in thy 
 mouth, and in thy heart : that is, the word of faith, 
 which we preach ; that if thou shalt confess with thy 
 month the Lord Jesns, and shalt believe in thine 
 heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou 
 shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth 
 unto righteousness ; and with the mouth confession 
 is made unto salvation." Evidently, the faith from 
 which springs this righteousness and justification is a 
 belief in the message of God given through Christ 
 and the apostles, the outward manifestation of 
 which is a public confession of the creed or faith of 
 the apostles. 
 
 It is plain from this definition of the essence and 
 nature of faith that it is not alone and separate from 
 other prerequisites and conditions sufficient to jus- 
 tification. It is impossible to maintain the heresy 
 of justification by faith alone without completely 
 altering the notion of faith which is given by the 
 
The Way of Salvation, j$ 
 
 teaching of Holy Scripture. The false notion of 
 faith and justification invented by Luther and sup- 
 ported by a gross falsification of the text of St. Paul 
 in his German translation, but more logically elabo- 
 rated by Calvin, is based on the doctrine that Christ 
 died for the elect only, their sins being imputed to 
 him, and his righteousness imputed to them. Ac- 
 cording to this heretical doctrine, justifying faith is 
 a belief infused by the Holy Spirit into the soul of 
 an elect person that Christ died for him, and that 
 as a necessary consequence his sins are remitted, 
 and a right to eternal life is conveyed to him, once 
 for all, without any need of anything further being 
 done in order to the completeness of his justifica- 
 tion, or any danger that he may ever lose it. The 
 very groundwork of this gross and deadly heresy 
 has been completely removed in our first chapter. 
 In that, I have proved that Christ died for all men. 
 No one can infer, therefore, from the certitude of 
 his belief, that Christ died for him as one of the 
 human race ; that his sins are remitted ; that he is 
 justified ; that he is predestined ; or that he will be 
 finally saved. Faith teaches each one who believes, 
 the way of salvation, gives him the motive of work- 
 ing out his salvation, and furnishes him with a 
 supernatural principle of activity, a disposition for 
 receiving the grace which justifies, a light and im- 
 pulse to direct and stimulate him in corresponding 
 
74 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 with grace; but does not of itself justify a sinner. 
 One who thinks and judges candidly and sincerely 
 must necessarily admit this conclusion. I have 
 proved beyond a cavil that faith is belief in the 
 truth revealed by Jesus Christ, and proposed by 
 him to all men. The summary of this truth is the 
 creed of the apostles, as all Christians admit. No 
 one can pretend that a man is justified and rendered 
 secure of salvation by simply believing the Apos- 
 tles' Creed. The belief and confession of the Chris- 
 tian and Catholic faith, which is briefly summarized 
 in this creed, is a condition sine qua non to salvation, 
 but not the sole condition. The man who believes 
 in his heart and confesses with his mouth the faith 
 of Jesus Christ will be saved, if he acts in a manner 
 consistent with his profession, if he carries out his 
 faith into obedience to the law of Christ, but not 
 otherwise. This is obvious and certain, and no per- 
 son capable of reasoning can dispute it with a good 
 conscience. But I will nevertheless prove it in an 
 explicit manner from the Scripture. 
 
 Those who have a strong faith, but weak virtue, 
 frequently fall into the practical error of trusting to 
 their faith as a substitute for good works. It seems 
 that some persons of that sort took advantage of 
 certain expressions in the Epistles of St. Paul to 
 avow boldly in the form of a false doctrine this fatal 
 practical delusion of all times. St. James of Jem- 
 
The Way of Salvation, 75 
 
 salem wrote his Epistle chiefly for the purpose of 
 condemning this perversion of St. Paul's doctrine, and 
 of making a more explicit and clear statement of the 
 relation between faith and works than that which St. 
 Paul had been called on, by the nature of the topics 
 concerning which he was treating, to set forth. The 
 following is the language which he uses, so plain 
 and unmistakable, that although the malice and 
 sophistry of heresy have wrested and perverted it 
 like everything else in Scripture, the blunt, auda- 
 cious common sense of Luther would not permit 
 him to see in it anything but a direct opposite to 
 his own doctrine of justification by faith alone ; 
 wherefore he rejected the whole Epistle from his 
 self-made canon. 
 
 " What doth it profit, my brethren, though a 
 man say he hath faith, and have not works ? can 
 faitJi save him ? . . . Faith, if it have not 
 works, is dead, being alone. Thou believest that 
 there is one God ; thou doest well : the devils also 
 believe and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain 
 man, that faith without works is dead ? . . . . 
 You see then how that by works a man is justified, 
 and not by faith only. . . . For as the body 
 without the spirit is dead, so faith without works 
 is dead also." * 
 
 * St. James ii. 14-26. 
 
76 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 St. James is undoubtedly here using the word faith 
 in*the sense of the definition I have already given — 
 of belief in divine truth. But, although his direct 
 and immediate object is to prove that a man is not 
 justified by a sound and orthodox belief alone, the 
 proof is equally conclusive against the doctrine of 
 justification by faith alone, taken in any sense 
 which separates it from obedience to the law of 
 God. For he expressly teaches " that by works a 
 man is justified," and therefore, let faith be what it 
 may — trust in the merits of Christ, confidence in the 
 mercy of God, a conviction that one is in the state of 
 grace, hope of the forgiveness of sins and final sal- 
 vation, or any other form of personal and individual 
 application to one's self of the promises of God — it 
 remains as a truth taught by inspiration in the 
 Scripture, that a man is justified by works, and that 
 nothing is sufficient to justify him which is separate 
 from the inward, operative principle which produces 
 good works. Any assertion that faith alone justi- 
 fies is therefore directly in the teeth of St. James's 
 declaration. 
 
 It is true that some persons explain faith in such 
 a way as to make it include both hope and charity, 
 and assert justification by faith alone in that sense. 
 But these persons really do not hold any doctrine 
 essentially different from the Catholic doctrine on 
 this point. They mean by faith a complex prin- 
 
The Way of Salvation. 77 
 
 ciple, which is called in Catholic language fides 
 formata — that is, faith informed or animated by 
 the love of God, and actually operative in obedi- 
 ence to the divine law. In this sense faith is the 
 adequate and complete inward principle of justifica- 
 tion and of sanctification. It alone justifies, as dis- 
 tinguished from every other species of righteous- 
 ness, or holiness, or virtue, or reason of any kind 
 for claiming the favor of God and the approbation 
 of conscience, which does not proceed from faith as 
 its root. But this is a wide and improper sense 
 in which faith is taken, and not the strict and 
 proper sense. Strictly speaking, faith is distinct 
 from hope and charity, even in the justified man, 
 although not separated from them. " Now abideth 
 these three, faith, hope, and charity ; but the great- 
 est of these is charity." * Christian hope and 
 charity cannot exist without faith, from which they 
 proceed. But faith can subsist without either hope 
 or charity, and hope can subsist without charity. 
 The quality which makes hope a fit disposition to 
 justification is received from faith, and the same 
 is true of charity. We are therefore justified by 
 faith in this sense : that faith, joined with the other 
 prerequisites, disposes the soul for justification, and 
 that faith is the root and principle of those other 
 
 * 1 Cor. siii. 13. 
 
78 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 prerequisites — viz., hope and charity. This is the 
 doctrine of the Council of Trent, which explains 
 justification by faith as follows: "When, there- 
 fore, the apostle says that man is justified by faith 
 and gratuitously, these words are to be understood 
 in this sense, which the perpetual consent of the 
 Catholic Church has held and expressed, to wit, that 
 we are said to be justified by faith for this reason : 
 because faith is the beginning of human salvation, 
 the foundation and root of all justification, without 
 which it is impossible to please God, and attain to 
 the fellowship of his children ; but we are said to 
 be justified gratuitously because none of* those 
 things which precede* justification, whether faith or 
 works, merit the grace itself of*justification." * 
 
 In the light of this explanation of the true sense 
 of St. Paul and of the other inspired writers, all 
 the difficulties which beset certain parts of the 
 apostle's teaching vanish like mists before the sun. 
 Any person who will apply this key to the Epistles 
 of St. Paul, in which he places the righteousness 
 which is of faith in opposition to that which is by 
 the works of the law, will unlock all their perplexi- 
 ties, and perceive the perfect agreement between St. 
 Paul and St. James. St. Paul proves, in opposition 
 to the Jews, that the works of the law — circumci- 
 
 * Sess. vi. c. 8. 
 
The Way of Salvation, 79 
 
 sion, sacrifice, the observance of rites and ceremo- 
 nies, and the worship of one God — have no intrinsic 
 power or efficacy, as separated from the merit of 
 the obedience and death of Christ, to justify a 
 sinner. But he does not teach that, when per- 
 formed in the spirit of faith, they were not, through 
 the merits of Christ, the appointed means and con- 
 ditions of obtaining justification through the grace 
 of God so long as the law continued in force. He 
 proves that the philosophical virtues of the heathen 
 had no intrinsic force of justification. But he does 
 not teach that these purely natural virtues were not 
 a negative preparation for the grace of faith, or 
 that those who had faith under the law of nature 
 were not justified by the merits of Christ, through 
 the means of a compliance with the dictates of the 
 natural law written in their hearts. He teaches 
 that those who have received the law of Christ do 
 not merit the grace of justification by any works 
 which they do before they are justified. But he 
 does not teach that these works, performed in the 
 spirit of faith and obedience, are not the essential 
 prerequisites and conditions of obtaining a free jus- 
 tification through the merits of Christ. This is the 
 only point under discussion at present. It is agreed 
 on both sides that salvation is a gratuitous work, or 
 grace of God toward men ; that the sins of those 
 men who are justified, whether original or actual, 
 
80 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 are forgiven on account of the expiation which 
 Jesus Christ has accomplished on the cross ; and 
 that grace, justification, and salvation are granted 
 to all those who are saved, on account of the merits 
 of Christ. The only question is, respecting the 
 conditions or prerequisites by which an individual 
 is disposed and made fit to receive justifying grace, 
 and the instrumental causes or means by which this 
 grace is actually communicated to him. The first 
 of these is faith, which I have proved to be a firm 
 belief in the revelation which God has made. I 
 have also proved that other acts, operations, or 
 works of the mind and will of man, under the ex- 
 citing influence of divine grace, are necessary to 
 perfect and complete faith. And I shall now pro- 
 ceed to prove from the Holy Scriptures of the New 
 Testament, and especially from the Epistles of St. 
 Paul, what are these other prerequisites and instru- 
 mental causes of justification. 
 
CHAPTER THIRD. 
 
 Other Prerequisites of Justification — Repentance and Conversion 
 to God — The Formal Cause and the Instruments of Justifica- 
 tion — Regeneration and Sanctifying Grace — The Sacraments 
 Instruments of Grace — Baptism the Sacrament of Regeneration. 
 
 THE Calvinistic heresy leaves intact the great 
 articles of the Creed and of the Catholic 
 faith which are immediately related to God and 
 our Lord Jesus Christ. But it subverts from the 
 foundation all that part of the faith which relates 
 to the divine operation of the Mediator through 
 secondary causes a^jd instruments, by which he 
 effects the regeneration and exaltation of the race 
 which he has redeemed. In regard to all this por- 
 tion of the system of Christianity, it is the most 
 radical of heresies, because it denies the very prin- 
 ciple on which it is based, and substitutes another 
 which is totally opposite and contrary. This false 
 principle is the doctrine which I have already re- 
 futed — that man is justified by faith alone.* The 
 Calvinist constructs this doctrine from certain per- 
 verted and misinterpreted texts of Scripture, with 
 which he forms by his own private judgment, or 
 rather, in most cases, by a blind following of the 
 
82 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 private judgment of his unauthorized teachers, a 
 system of his own, which to certain minds is the 
 most captivating of all errors, partly on account of 
 its logical coherence and completeness, and partly 
 on account of the perfect security and assurance of 
 salvation on easy terms with which it dazzles and 
 deludes its victims. The man who fancies that a 
 certain feeling or state of his soul, which he calls 
 faith, justifies him at once, completely, and for ever, 
 giving him a sure sign that he has been absolutely 
 predestined and elected to salvation, freeing him in 
 an instant from the imputation of all past and future 
 sin, and clothing him with a spotless robe of right- 
 eousness, which he is equally incapable of staining 
 by guilt or making more brilliant by merit, naturally 
 and logically concludes that he^has no need of any- 
 thing else, and cannot profit by anything whatever, 
 whether in .heaven or on the earth. He needs no 
 teacher, no priest, no intercessor, no sacraments, 
 no church. Faith gives him everything ; and even his 
 peccadilloes or his more grievous delinquencies give 
 him no just occasion for alarm or anxiety. So long 
 as the mind of a man is possessed by this persuasion 
 or conviction, he cannot be reached by argument, 
 or even induced to pay attention to, much less 
 examine, the grounds and reasons on which the 
 Catholic doctrine presents its claim to a hearing. 
 Of what use is it for a man who already possesses 
 
The Way of Salvation. 8$ 
 
 the secret of the king to listen to men who offer to 
 explain to him the royal will and intention, or the 
 way of gaining the royal favor, even if they profess 
 to be his ministers ? A firm and decided Calvinist 
 will not even pay attention to the inspired apostles 
 themselves, or give heed to the plain teachings of 
 the Holy Scripture. His chosen texts are the pith 
 and marrow of Scripture for him. Upon these he 
 dwells ; they are for him, as it were, in large 
 capitals ; the rest is glided over, or glossed and 
 twisted into forced conformity with his perverted 
 sense of isolated texts. 
 
 But I beg leave to represent to those who are 
 conscientious and reasonable, even though they 
 have imbibed Calvin is tic doctrines from their early 
 teaching, that this course is wrong and inconsis- 
 tent. One who professes to believe that " all 
 Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is 
 profitable for doctrine," is bound to pay as much 
 reverence to one portion of it as to another. One 
 who believes that it is his duty to read and examine 
 it for himself is bound to consider, compare, and 
 weigh all its doctrinal statements, and to interpret 
 them in such a manner that they will be consistent 
 and harmonious with each other. I am about to 
 cite a number of these passages which cannot possi- 
 bly be reconciled with the Calvinistic interpretation 
 of the texts in which the office of faith in justifica- 
 
84 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 tion is set forth. They are utterly contradictory to 
 every possible interpretation of the Scripture teach- 
 ing respecting faith and justification, except the one 
 which I have proposed. And therefore, although 
 I have proved sufficiently the Catholic doctrine, so 
 far as I have gone, in the preceding chapters, the 
 proofs I am now going to adduce are a distinct and 
 independent demonstration of the same, as well as 
 an additional evidence of the truth in respect to 
 new points not yet discussed. These proofs begin 
 at the point already reached — viz., that the sinner 
 makes the first step toward obtaining remission 
 and grace by believing the word of God which is 
 preached to him by Jesus Christ and his appointed 
 ministers. This word contains the revelation of the 
 way of salvation through Jesus Christ. As the man 
 who comes to God must believe that he is, and is 
 the rewarder of them who diligently seek him, even 
 under the dim light of the natural law, so the one 
 who hears the clear and distinct voice of the Gospel 
 must believe that " God was in Christ, reconciling 
 the world unto himself, not imputing their tres- 
 passes unto them ; and hath committed unto us 
 [the apostles] the word of reconciliation." The 
 next step which the believing hearer of the word 
 from the mouth of an apostle had to take was to 
 beg him to exercise his ministry of reconciliation 
 toward himself. " We are ambassadors for Christ," 
 
The Way of Salvation. 95 
 
 says St. Paul, " as though God did beseech you by 
 us : we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled 
 to God." * The person who, recognizing the fact 
 of a positive, or at least a negative, alienation of his 
 soul from God, desired to close with this offer to 
 make his peace with the Divine Majesty, must 
 necessarily treat with his ambassador. He would 
 ask from him the conditions of peace, the terms of 
 reconciliation. The ambassador, having invited the 
 enemies of his sovereign to a reconciliation, is in duty 
 bound to make known to them in clear and precise 
 terms what these conditions are. Without any 
 doubt, the very first instructions given to their 
 neophytes by the apostles contained a full expla- 
 nation of the conditions they must comply with in 
 order to obtain the grace of God and justification. 
 A Protestant is bound to believe that these instruc- 
 tions have been distinctly and completely recorded 
 in the New Testament — the only means, according 
 to him, which God has provided for us, since the 
 death of the inspired authors of that sacred collec- 
 tion, in order that we may know what these condi- 
 tions are. 
 
 It is not necessary to spend time in proving that 
 repentance from sin and conversion to God are con- 
 ditions of salvation through Jesus Christ. The 
 
 * 2 Cor. v. 19, 20. 
 
86 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 strictest Calvinist will admit this, and even maintain 
 it strongly, notwithstanding his doctrine of justifica- 
 tion by faith alone. In theory, he maintains that 
 faith, as distinct from the love of God, is the sole 
 instrument of justification ; yet he does not hold that 
 it can be true, justifying faith, separate from love. 
 Practically, Calvinists generally make repentance 
 and conversion, or a change of heart, the means 
 and the test of the passage from the state of death 
 to the state of life. Those who are not strict Cal- 
 vinists, and who, with more or less explicitness, un- 
 derstand by saving faith fides formata, or faith 
 informed by love, invariably make repentance and 
 conversion the conditions of reconciliation with God, 
 and the whole scope of their preaching is directed 
 toward the end of awakening their hearers to a sense 
 of their lost condition as sinners, and an earnest 
 effort to obtain salvation from sin and its penalties 
 by contrition for the past, and a sincere purpose of 
 living a new life in the future. I may therefore take 
 it for granted that the apostles taught those who 
 believed their word, and who desired to act on that 
 belief, that they must repent of their sins, resolve 
 to sin no more, and begin to direct their intention 
 and their actions toward their chief end, which is 
 " to glorify God and enjoy him for ever." This 
 resolution virtually includes obedience to all the 
 commandments of God. He who wills the end 
 
The Way of Salvation. Sy 
 
 wills the means. Whoever professes that he makes 
 it the end of his life to glorify God here, in order 
 that he may be glorified and beatified by him in 
 eternity, must prove the reality of his purpose by 
 keeping that law which God has laid down as the way 
 by which this end must be attained. The only point 
 which can be considered at all is, whether there are 
 precepts in the law of Christ requiring something 
 more than the mere internal acts of faith, hope, and 
 charity as the condition of being made just and 
 holy, a friend and child of God, and an heir of 
 heaven. These internal acts undoubtedly comprise 
 all the dispositions which are requisite to prepare 
 the soul for the grace of God. But it is necessary 
 that the soul should receive this grace, as well as be 
 prepared and disposed for it. I am speaking now 
 of a person who is still unregenerate, but who de- 
 sires to receive the gift of regeneration, to obtain 
 justification, to be reconciled with God, and ad- 
 mitted to the fellowship of his Son by adoption 
 through his grace. Nothing which is done before 
 regeneration can have any efficacy to efface sin or 
 unite the soul with God. By faith the soul looks 
 toward God as the author of grace and salvation. 
 By hope it expects to receive from him this grace. 
 By that charity which it is capable of exercising 
 through the aid of prevenient grace before regenera- 
 tion, and which is not filial, but only initial and ser- 
 
88 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 vile love, or rather the fear of God, it turns its 
 purpose and intention from the pleasures of sin to 
 the eternal good. These are conditions precedent 
 to regeneration and sanctification by the Holy 
 Spirit. The actual communication of the sancti- 
 fying grace requires a distinct and positive act of 
 God, by which he infuses into the soul his divine 
 gifts, stamps his likeness upon it, and elevates it to 
 a participation with his own nature. All this will 
 be admitted by the disciples of the old Lutheran 
 and Calvinistic confessions. I will therefore take it 
 for granted for the present, and those who have 
 abandoned or lost this old doctrine of their fathers 
 may find it sufficiently proved from the Scripture in 
 the course of what is to follow hereafter. 
 
 The question to be considered is whether the 
 apostles taught their catechumens to expect this 
 illapse of the Holy Spirit to take place immediately 
 in their souls after they had inwardly converted 
 themselves to God, or taught them to resort to the 
 sacraments as a medium and instrumental cause 
 of sanctifying grace. This question is not diffi- 
 cult to answer in such a way as to satisfy com- 
 pletely any one who will calmly and attentively 
 consider certain very clear texts of the New Testa- 
 ment, with his mind disposed to believe them in 
 their plain, obvious sense, without regard to his 
 preconceived opinions. St. Paul is particularly ex- 
 
The Way of Salvation. 89 
 
 plicit and distinct in his teaching on this subject, 
 and, when he speaks about the sacraments, his 
 language is by no means " hard to be understood " ; 
 although experience shows that it is easy to be 
 passed over and neglected by those whose whole 
 attention is absorbed by the most obscure, abstruse, 
 and difficult portions of his writings. 
 
 The apostles, as I have already said, must have 
 given their catechumens, at the very beginning of 
 their Christian life, explicit and full instructions 
 upon these topics, as being the very first principles 
 of Christian doctrine. And St. Paul declares this 
 expressly, at the same time distinctly mentioning 
 some of these primary principles, in a passage which 
 has been already cited in another connection. It is 
 in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and forms one 
 of those digressions into which the genius of his 
 mind often led him, and which are often among 
 the passages of his writings which are the most 
 fraught with instruction and eloquence. " Ye 
 have need," he says, " that one teach you again 
 which be the first principles of the oracles of 
 God." He calls them reprovingly mere Christian 
 babes — that is, children or neophytes in the. first class 
 of the catechism. He reminds them that they learn- 
 ed their catechism a long time ago, when they were 
 young in the faith and needed to be fed with the 
 milk of the word. And he exhorts them to 00 for- 
 
90 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 ward, to ascend into a higher grade of Christian 
 knowledge : " Therefore leaving the principles of 
 the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection ; 
 not laying again the foundation of repentance from 
 dead works, and of faith toward God, of the doctrine 
 'of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resur- 
 rection of the dead, and of eternal judgment."* 
 The " doctrine of baptisms " is evidently the in- 
 struction concerning the nature of the sacrament of 
 baptism, the way to receive it worthily, and the 
 privileges and obligations involved in its reception. 
 The use of the plural number appears strange and 
 puzzling at first sight. But St. Paul was writing to 
 converted Jews who were familiar with a similar rite 
 in the Old Law, and knew of, if they had not receiv- 
 ed, the baptism of John. Wherefore the instruction 
 concerning baptism necessarily included an exposi- 
 tion of the difference which distinguished the Chris- 
 tian sacrament from all other ceremonial ablutions, 
 and this explains the reason for using the plural in- 
 stead of the singular term, baptism. " Laying on of 
 hands " can mean nothing else than the sacrament 
 of confirmation. We see, then, most clearly, with 
 what milk the apostles fed their Christian babes. The 
 whole passage is unintelligible on the Calvin istic the- 
 ory. It is irreconcilable with the Calvinistic doctrine. 
 It teaches plainly the doctrine I have already estab- 
 
 * Jleb. v. 12 ; vi. I, 2. 
 
The Way of Salvation, 91 
 
 lished concerning faith and the other prerequisites 
 to justification. And it teaches, further, the pri- 
 mary importance of the sacraments, by classing 
 the doctrine concerning baptism and confirmation 
 among the " first principles," together with faith 
 and repentance. This is incompatible with any 
 kind of Protestant doctrine in which the grace of 
 the sacraments, and their office as instrumental 
 causes of sanctification, are denied. Mere ceremonies 
 or outward rites, which signify, but do not confer, 
 spiritual grace, are things of minor importance. 
 And the context which follows evidently implies 
 that the converts of the apostles had been taught by 
 them to regard the sacraments of baptism, confirma- 
 tion, and the Holy Eucharist as operative means 
 of sanctification : " For it is impossible for those 
 who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the 
 heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy 
 Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and 
 the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall 
 away, to renew them again unto repentance." The 
 term " enlightened," as every one who has read 
 anything of primitive Christianity knows, is one 
 of the specific terms appropriated to those who 
 have received baptism. The " heavenly gift " is 
 manifestly the Holy Eucharist ; and the means of 
 being made " partakers of the Holy Ghost " is 
 shown to be the sacrament of confirmation by the 
 
92 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 connection of this passage with the one in which the 
 laying on of hands is spoken of. Let it be observ- 
 ed that all these things are distinguished from the 
 "word of God," and cannot therefore refer to faith 
 or to mere internal acts excited by the preaching 
 of the word. I repeat it : this whole passage is ut- 
 terly irreconcilable with any Calvinistic or pretend- 
 ed evangelical theory which is based on Luther's 
 doctrine of justification by faith alone, and excludes 
 moral sanctity and sacramental grace from a 
 share in justification. On the contrary, it is clear, 
 harmonious, intelligible, and full of meaning and 
 force so soon as it is read in the light of Catho- 
 lic doctrine. 
 
 The Catholic catechumen who is under instruc- 
 tion from a priest in the principles of Catholic faith 
 and practice is carefully taught the necessity and 
 the mode of reforming his life and renouncing all sins 
 and vicious habits. He is instructed in the articles 
 of the faith as contained in the Creed and in the 
 capital points of Christian doctrine. He is taught 
 the nature and efficacy of the sacraments, especially 
 baptism, confirmation, and the Holy Eucharist, and 
 the way of preparing to receive them worthily. 
 The future life is placed before his eyes as the end 
 of his existence here, and he is admonished of the 
 judgment which he must undergo when his proba- 
 tion is finished. When he has received the sacra- 
 
The Way of Salvation. 93 
 
 ments, he is admonished to aim at Christian perfec- 
 tion by the diligent use of the means of grace, the 
 acquisition of virtue and holiness, and the practice 
 of good works. 
 
 Precisely in the same manner does St. Paul de- 
 scribe the manner in which the apostles were^ accus- 
 tomed to instruct their neophytes in the " princi- 
 ples of the doctrine of Christ." The first thing is 
 14 repentance from dead works " ; turning away from 
 the works of the dead — that is, deadly sins — and 
 merely natural good works which are without life- 
 giving power, to living works done in the grace of 
 God. The next is " faith toward God," or the ex- 
 plicit knowledge and belief of the truths of divine 
 theology. Then the doctrine of baptism and of the 
 other sacraments. The young Christian is pre- 
 sented before us, after his instruction is completed, 
 coming to the font of baptism to be " illuminated," 
 sealed with the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the 
 hands of an apostle, admitted to the Eucharistic Ta- 
 ble of the Lord, and thus fully endowed with all the 
 privileges of a child of God and an heir of heaven. 
 Finally, he is exhorted to " go on unto perfection," 
 not as one who is completely justified, saved, and 
 secured by an extrinsic and imputed righteousness, 
 but as one who has to work his own way in the 
 favor of God and towards heaven, with the risk al- 
 ways attending him of forfeiting everything if he 
 
94 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 falls away and does not " show the same diligence 
 to the full assurance of hope unto the end." 
 
 Among all the sacramental means and instru- 
 ments of justification alluded to by the apostle, the 
 first, the most necessary, and the one most closely 
 connected with the primary and fundamental act 
 which justifies a sinner, is the sacrament of baptism. 
 We have already seen that the instruction given by 
 the apostles to their neophytes respecting this 
 sacrament was one of the first principles ; and a part 
 of the foundation of that Christian doctrine which 
 they were required to believe, and according to 
 which they were required to practise, as a prelimi- 
 nary to their reception into the number of the faith- 
 ful. But we are not left to seek in casual allusions 
 of this kind for the only light which the writings 
 of the apostles themselves furnish us respecting the 
 details of this instruction respecting baptism, or 
 obliged to have our sole recourse to tradition, full 
 and trustworthy as this source of knowledge is, for 
 our more complete information on this topic. It 
 so happens that there is scarcely any topic on 
 which so many and such clear statements are found 
 in the inspired writings of the apostles as this very 
 one of baptism. This is a very happy circum- 
 stance for one who seeks after the truth respecting 
 the Catholic faith in the New Testament, or who 
 undertakes to prove it from the same. For the 
 
The Way of Salvation. 95 
 
 whole doctrine of the grace and sanctifying efficacy 
 of sacraments, the entire principle of sacramental 
 justification, is included and involved in that great 
 and cardinal doctrine of the Catholic religion — the 
 doctrine of baptismal regeneration. This doctrine 
 established, and the way is clear and open to the 
 demonstration of the whole Catholic system. This 
 doctrine subverted, and every kind of anti-Catholic 
 heresy has a clear field before it. It is therefore 
 happy for us that the Scripture is so abundant and 
 explicit in its teachings on this subject, as I shall 
 now proceed to prove in the most satisfactory and 
 unanswerable manner. 
 
 I begin by referring to one well-known and unde- 
 niable point of St. Paul's teaching throughout his 
 Epistles, which is, that circumcision, together with 
 other Jewish rites, was abolished because it was un- 
 profitable as a means of justification — a mere sign 
 and token of a covenant of grace, which became use- 
 less, and even noxious, when the covenant itself had 
 been fulfilled. It is, therefore, absurd to suppose 
 that a mere ceremony of baptism, really of no more 
 value than circumcision, has been substituted in its 
 place in the Christian Law. Protestants are wholly 
 inconsequent when they attach so much importance 
 to that which they regard as a mere ceremony, dis- 
 pute so violently about the mode of performing it, 
 and even make one particular mode of baptizing, 
 
96 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 and an opinion about the subjects who are fit to re- 
 ceive baptism, a sufficient reason for sectarian divi- 
 sions among themselves. They will, of course, fall 
 back on the precept of Jesus Christ, and declare 
 that something which he has strictly commanded 
 to be fulfilled cannot be a trivial matter. I admit it, 
 and retort their argument on themselves. It cannot 
 be a matter of trivial importance, for Jesus Christ 
 would not make such a matter the object of a grave 
 precept and obligation. But you make it a trivial 
 matter by your explanation. Therefore your ex- 
 planation is false. Let any one consider the solem- 
 nity of the form of baptism which is derived from 
 the very words of our Lord himself: "I baptize 
 thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
 of the Holy Ghost." It is evident that such a form 
 of words expresses a most momentous act, and de- 
 notes a relation established between the subject of 
 baptism and the Blessed Trinity of the most sacred 
 character. And that this is no other relation than 
 that of " a child of God, a member of Christ, and 
 an heir of the kingdom of heaven," involving the 
 remission of all sin, original and actual, justification, 
 sanctification, and every other grace or privilege 
 which is included in regeneration or flows from it, 
 I shall now proceed to prove by most explicit state- 
 ments of the Holy Scripture. 
 
 I begin with the testimony of St. John Baptist : 
 
The Way of Salvation. 97 
 
 " He that sent me to baptize with water, the same 
 said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit 
 descending, and remaining on him, the same is he 
 which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost." * The bap- 
 tism instituted by Jesus Christ was therefore not a 
 mere outward lustration with water as a sign of 
 something else, like that of John, but a real sacra- 
 ment in which the Holy Ghost was given. This is 
 reiterated and further explained by our Lord him- 
 self to Nicodemus : " Except a man be born of 
 water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the 
 kingdom of God." f The baptizing with the Holy 
 Ghost is not, indeed, restricted to the sacrament of 
 baptism, for it maybe understood to include every 
 kind of abundant outpouring of grace upon the 
 minds and hearts of men. But it must have a 
 special relation to that sacrament which is specifical- 
 ly called by the name of baptism. It is regeneration 
 which is the term toward which all preparatory 
 graces of the Holy Spirit tend, and from which all 
 subsequent graces take their departure. Our Lord 
 explained to Nicodemus the necessity of this regen- 
 eration and the sacramental medium by which it is 
 effected, namely, the water of baptism, which is unit- 
 ed as an outward sign with the inward and sancti- 
 fying grace of the Holy Spirit. There is an appli- 
 cation of the general statement oi St. John made 
 * St. John i. 33. f St. John iii. 5. 
 
98 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 by our Lord to the special instance of regeneration. 
 The general statement is that it is characteristic of 
 the ministry of Jesus Christ as the Son of God that 
 he baptizes with the Holy Ghost. The particular 
 statement of our Lord is that in the act of regenera- 
 tion this baptism is one of water as well as of the 
 Spirit. When, therefore, we find him instituting a 
 sacrament which is specially called by that name 
 which denotes the characteristic operation of his 
 divine power, and in which the outward element 
 is water, we must understand that this power is 
 specially and signally manifested in this sacrament, 
 and that its proper effect is to produce that new 
 birth which he expressly declares to Nicodemus 
 is caused by the union of " water and the Spirit." 
 The outward ceremony of lustration with water and 
 the name of baptism must have been chosen by 
 our Lord for the primary and initiatory sacrament 
 of his church, precisely because in this sacrament 
 the baptism of the Spirit, which is the purification 
 and sanctification of the soul by the grace proceed- 
 ing from the Holy Spirit, is both represented and 
 really imparted in a special manner. 
 
 As our Lord began his ministry by teaching the 
 nature and necessity of baptism, not as a mere cere- 
 mony or sign which must be observed simply be- 
 cause he commanded it, like a Jewish rite, but as a 
 true sacrament of regeneration, so he concluded it 
 
The Way of Salvation. 99 
 
 by a solemn repetition of the same doctrine. After 
 his resurrection, " he appeared unto the eleven as 
 they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their 
 unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believ- 
 ed not them which had seen him after he was risen. 
 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, 
 and preach the gospel to every creature. He that 
 bclieveth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that 
 believeth not shall be damned." * Here is a sum- 
 mary of the gospel, that is, the good 'tidings, or the 
 announcement of the way of pardon and salvation 
 to man. First, it is necessary to believe on Christ. 
 Second, to receive his baptism. Everything is 
 really included in these two conditions, although 
 obscurely, and needing further elucidation in order 
 that the idea which is formed in the mind of the 
 way of salvation may become clear, distinct, and 
 complete. This elucidation of faith has already 
 been given, and we are now engaged in the elucida- 
 tion of baptism. In a general way, it may be said 
 that faith includes all the requisite dispositions 
 which prepare the subject for baptism, and that 
 baptism includes, together with the sacramental and 
 sanctifying grace directly conferred by it, all the 
 graces and privileges to which it gives a right, and 
 all the obligations which it imposes. 
 
 The apostles fulfilled the commandment of their 
 
 * St. Mark xvi. 14-16. 
 
ioo The Way of Salvation. 
 
 Lord to the letter. Ten days after his ascension, 
 the Vicar of Christ and Prince of the Apostles, St. 
 Peter, preached the faith to a great assembly of 
 Jews. As the conclusion and summary of his dis- 
 course, he exclaimed : " Therefore let all the house 
 of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that 
 same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and 
 Christ." Behold the object of faith, on which it is 
 necessary to believe as the first preliminary to par- 
 don and salvation. " Now when they heard this, 
 they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter 
 and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren,, 
 what shall we do ? " Behold here the beginning of 
 faith, accompanied by a sincere disposition to act up 
 to it, and that compunction of the heart which is 
 the beginning of true repentance and conversion. 
 M Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be bap- 
 tized every one of you, for the remission of sins, and 
 ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." * Be- 
 hold here the sacrament of baptism as the means 
 of the remission of sins and sanctification by the 
 grace of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 St. Paul, in his speech on the stairs of the castle 
 at Jerusalem, cites the words spoken to him by 
 Ananias at Damascus : " Arise, and be baptized, 
 and wash away thy sins.' 1 f In the Epistle to 
 the Romans he exclaims, appealing to a wcll- 
 * Acts ii. 36-38. f 1' id. xxii. 16. 
 
The Way of Salvation. 101 
 
 known and familiar doctrine in which they had 
 been instructed when they were made Christians : 
 " Know ye not, that so many of us as were bap- 
 tized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his 
 death ? Therefore we are buried with him by 
 baptism into death." What is the meaning of 
 being baptized into Jesus Christ ? Evidently, be- 
 ing made a member of Christ by baptism. This 
 is only another form of expressing that super- 
 natural change called regeneration. The one who 
 is a member of the fallen race of Adam, who is 
 under the ban of original sin, and who is still further 
 degraded and estranged from God by actual sins, 
 is freed from the guilt of both original and actual 
 sin, transferred from Adam to Christ, renewed and 
 endowed with a new nature, born again of the Holy 
 Spirit, through the merit of the death of Jesus 
 Christ upon the cross. The old man of sin within 
 him may therefore be said to have been crucified 
 and buried in the death and burial of the Re- 
 deemer, who destroyed sin and death by dying for 
 the expiation of the guilt and the remission of 
 the penalty of sin. He is also raised to a new life 
 after the model of Christ's resurrection. " Like as 
 Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of 
 the Father, even so we also should walk in newness 
 of life. For if we have been planted together in 
 the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the 
 
102 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 likeness of his resurrection."* This "planting in 
 the likeness of his death " is evidently the same 
 thing as " buried with him by baptism into death." 
 The destruction of sin and the creation of a new, 
 supernatural life, whose consummation is everlast- 
 ing beatitude, is therefore clearly and distinctly as- 
 cribed to baptism as the medium or instrumental 
 cause by which the Holy Spirit operates in effect- 
 ing the work of regeneration. 
 
 The apostle repeats the same thing to the Colos- 
 sians, contrasting the operative power of the sacra- 
 ment of baptism with the inefficacy of the rite of cir- 
 cumcision : "Ye are complete in him, which is the 
 head of all principality and power ; in whom also ye 
 are circumcised with the circumcision made without 
 hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the 
 flesh by the circumcision of Christ : buried with him in 
 "baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through 
 the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised 
 him from the dead." f In his First Epistle to the 
 Corinthians he says that " by one Spirit are we all 
 baptized into one body," X and we must therefore 
 understand him to refer to baptism in his Epistle 
 to the Ephesians, in which he says: "Christ also 
 loved the church, and gave himself for it ; that he 
 might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of 
 water by the word" ; especially as he had already 
 * Rom. vi. 3-5. f Col. ii. 10-12. % * Cor - xii - x 3- 
 
The Way of Salvation. 103 
 
 specified baptism as one of the great Unities : 
 " Endeavoring to keep the Unity of the Spirit in 
 the bond of peace : One Body, and One Spirit, even 
 as ye are called in One Hope of your calling ; One 
 Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, One God and Fa- 
 ther of all." * Finally, in the Epistle to Titus St. 
 Paul evidently refers to baptism in the passage 
 where he says that " after that the kindness and 
 love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, 
 not by works of righteousness which we have done, 
 but according to his mercy he saved us, by the 
 washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy 
 Ghost." The Greek word Xovrpov, translated by 
 St. Jerome into the Latin lavacrum, signifies laver, 
 or bath ; and it is well known that the appellation 
 " Laver of Regeneration," derived from this passage, 
 is a common name for baptism among the Greek 
 and Latin Fathers, as it is now among Catholics 
 and Episcopalians. Even the editors of the Ameri- 
 can Bible Society's edition of King James's Version 
 refer here to a passage in St. Peter's First Catho- 
 lic Epistle, in which he distinctly mentions bap- 
 tism, and which will be cited hereafter. The 
 Protestant Bishop Bloomfield, annotating this 
 passage, says: "Render, by 'the laver of regene- 
 ration.' The ancient expositors almost univer- 
 sally (see Chrys. i. 323), and all the most emi- 
 * Eph. v. 25, 26 ; iv. 3-6. 
 
104 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 nent modern commentators, are agreed that by 
 the naXiyy areata is meant baptismal regenera- 
 tion." * If the opinion of Bloomfield is held in 
 light esteem as that of an Anglican, the judgment 
 of Calvin ought to have some weight with his 
 own disciples. Calvin renders the Greek phrase in 
 the same manner with St. Jerome, by lavacrum 
 regenerations, and he goes on to say : " I doubt not 
 that he at least alludes to baptism ; indeed, I can 
 easily allow the passage to be explained concerning 
 baptism ; not that salvation is included in the ex- 
 ternal symbol of water, but because baptism seals 
 to us the salvation obtained by Christ. Paul is 
 treating of the disclosure of the grace of God, 
 which we have said is made manifest by faith. Since, 
 therefore, a part of the revelation is made manifest by 
 baptism — inasmuch, that is, as it is appointed for the 
 confirmation of faith — he very suitably makes men- 
 tion of it. Moreover, since baptism is the way of en- 
 trance into the church and a symbol of our graft- 
 ing into Christ, it is here opportunely introduced 
 by Paul, while he is endeavoring to show forth in 
 what manner the grace of Christ has appeared to 
 us ; wherefore the construction of his argument is as 
 follows: God has saved us by his mercy, of which 
 salvation he has given the symbol and pledge in 
 baptism, admitting us into his church and grafting 
 * Bloomf. Gr. Test, in loc. 
 
The Way of Salvation.. 105 
 
 us into the body of his Son. It is to be noted also 
 that the apostles are accustomed to deduce an 
 argument from the sacraments, that they may 
 prove thereby the thing signified by them, for the 
 reason that pious men ought to hold firmly this 
 principle : that God does not play with us by empty 
 figures, but effects inwardly by his power that 
 which he shows forth by the outward sign. Where- 
 fore baptism is fittingly and truly called the laver 
 of regeneration. That man will rightly grasp the 
 power and utility of the sacraments who so con- 
 nects the thing and the sign that he does not make 
 the sign something empty and inefficacious ; nor, 
 on the other hand, for the sake of exalting it, take 
 away from the Holy Spirit what is properly his own. 
 Yet, although the impious are neither washed nor 
 renewed by baptism, it retains, notwithstanding, 
 that power so far as relates to God, since, how- 
 ever much they may spurn the grace of God, 
 it is nevertheless offered to them. Moreover, 
 Paul is here addressing believers, in whom, be- 
 cause baptism is always efficacious, it is properly 
 conjoined with its truth and effect." * 
 
 It is not my affair to vindicate the consistency 
 
 of John Calvin — a matter which pertains to those 
 
 who acknowledge him as their master. His way 
 
 of playing fast and loose with doctrine, and his 
 
 * Calvin in Epist. Com. in loc. 
 
106 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 shifty, sophistical habit of mind, are plainly enough 
 exhibited in this passage. I have cited him simply 
 for the purpose of showing that the language of 
 Scripture and the deeply-seated sense of the Chris- 
 tian mind connect the sacrament of baptism so in- 
 dissolubly with the grace of regeneration that only 
 the deadening of that sense by a protracted action 
 of heresy upon it can sever them. Let the reader 
 take note of some of the admissions of Calvin in 
 the passage above cited. He admits that baptism 
 is the laver of regeneration. Now, the only plain 
 and distinct sense which this phrase admits is that 
 baptism is the sacrament in which the washing of 
 regeneration is applied to the soul. He admits, 
 moreover, that sacraments are not empty figures, 
 but that the grace which they signify is effected 
 by the power of God in all except the impious, 
 in respect to whom baptism is denuded of sanctify- 
 ing grace, not from any defect in itself, or lack 
 of will on the part of God, but through their own 
 fault, and because they spurn the grace offered to 
 them. Once more, that baptism is always effi- 
 cacious in true believers, and that all who are bap- 
 tized would be washed and renewed by baptism if 
 they were true believers. The objections which he 
 covertly makes against the Catholic doctrine of 
 baptism are that it makes the outward symbol of 
 water to include salvation, and that it thereby de- 
 
The Way of Salvation. 107 
 
 tracts from the grace of the Holy Spirit. He seems 
 also to insinuate that it teaches the sanctifying 
 efficacy of baptism in the souls of the impious. 
 Now, in point of fact, as Calvin knew very well, 
 the Catholic Church ascribes no efficacy to the 
 sacrament, except that of a secondary and in- 
 strumental cause, subordinated to the action of 
 the Holy Spirit as the first cause and real author 
 of regeneration ; and, moreover, explicitly teaches 
 that the unworthy recipient of baptism, who has 
 not the requisite dispositions of faith and repent- 
 ance, does not receive remission of sin and sanctify- 
 ing grace when he is baptized, and cannot receive 
 them until he has become a true penitent and a 
 true believer. Therefore the Catholic doctrine 
 respecting baptismal regeneration is fully justified 
 by the admissions of Calvin. And I would beg 
 of those Calvinists who admit that infants are 
 proper subjects of baptism to note carefully what 
 follows from the doctrine here laid down by their 
 master in regard to all baptized infants. It fol- 
 lows, namely, that they are regenerated. For, as 
 the sign is efficacious by the institution of Jesus 
 Christ in every case where the person who receives 
 it does not defeat the gracious purpose of God by 
 impiously spurning his grace, and as infants are in- 
 capable of any act of reason or will whatever, infants 
 who are baptized cannot spurn the grace of God, 
 
108 The Way of Salvation* 
 
 and consequently are always washed and renewed 
 in baptism, the laver of regeneration. 
 
 Quite similar to the passage from St. Paul's 
 Epistle just explained is the one already alluded 
 to in the First Catholic Epistle of St. Peter : 
 " Once the long-suffering of God waited in the 
 days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, 
 wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by 
 water. The like figure whcretinto cvcji baptism doth 
 also now save us (not the putting away of the filth 
 of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience 
 toward God), by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." * 
 
 Bishop Bloomfield expresses the sense of this 
 passage as follows : " Into which a few (namely, 
 eight) persons embarked, and were saved through 
 the water, the antitype to which thing (namely, 
 what corresponds to, and was figured by, the pre- 
 servation of Noah and his family in the ark) doth 
 now save us, through the resurrection of Christ, as 
 the ark did them ; [I mean] baptism, which is not 
 merely the putting away the filth of the flesh [by 
 material water], but the answer of a good con- 
 science towards God." "By doth now save us is 
 meant ' places us in a state of salvation.' The 
 answer of a good conscience toward God. That is 
 (as explains Mr. Holden), ' by that which enables 
 us to return such an answer as springs from a good 
 
 * i Ep. St. Peter iii. 20, 21. 
 
The Way of Salvation, 109 
 
 conscience towards God, which can be no other 
 than the inward change and renovation wrought 
 by the Spirit.' The meaning, therefore, is that 
 baptism, in order to save us, must not be the 
 mere outward act, but must be also accompanied 
 with the inward grace ; in other words, it must be 
 that baptism which our Lord described as the being 
 born again of water and of the Spirit." * 
 
 Calvin remarks upon this passage : " The sense is 
 by no means ambiguous, that, Noe being saved by 
 water, had a certain similitude of baptism. And the 
 apostle calls this to mind, that the likeness between 
 him and us may appear more clearly. I have al- 
 ready said that the scope of this passage is that we 
 should not be led away by bad examples from the 
 fear of the Lord and the right way of salvation, to 
 mingle ourselves with the world. This appears 
 clearly in baptism, in which we are buried together 
 with Christ, that, being dead to the world and the 
 flesh, we should live unto God. In this respect he 
 calls our baptism an antitype to the baptism of 
 Noe — not that the baptism of Noe was the original 
 exemplar, while ours is an inferior figure, . . . 
 but there is here no comparison of greater or 
 less ; the apostle merely signifies that there is a 
 mutual similitude, or, as it is commonly called, a 
 correspondence, between the two. . . . There- 
 * Bloomf. in loc. 
 
no The Way of Salvation. 
 
 fore, as Noe obtained life by means of death, when 
 he was shut up in the ark as if he had been in a 
 tomb, and amid the general destruction of the world 
 was preserved together with his little family, so, at 
 the present time, the mortification which is repre- 
 sented by baptism is to us an entrance into life ; 
 nor is salvation to be hoped for unless we are 
 separated from the world. Not the putting aivay 
 of the Jilt h of the flesh. . . . Some fanatical men 
 (for instance, Schwenkfeld) vainly distort this testi- 
 mony, desiring to take away all force and effect 
 from the sacraments. For Peter did not here in- 
 tend to teach that the institution of Christ is an 
 empty and inefficacious thing, but only to exclude 
 from the hope of salvation those hypocrites who, 
 so far as lies in them, deprave and corrupt baptism. 
 Moreover, when it is question of the sacraments, 
 two things are to be considered — the sign and the 
 thing, as in baptism the sign is water; but the 
 thing is the ablution of the soul by the blood of 
 Christ and the mortification of the flesh. The in- 
 stitution of Christ includes within itself each one of 
 these. But that the sign often appears inefficacious 
 and without fruit happens by the abuse of men, 
 which does not take away the nature of the sac- 
 rament. . . . Certainly, when Peter, having 
 made mention of baptism, immediately makes the 
 exception that it is not the putting away of the 
 
The Way of Salvation, 1 1 1 
 
 filth of the flesh, he shows plainly enough that 
 to some baptism is only of the latter, and therefore 
 that the external sign is by itself of no value. But 
 the interrogation of a good conscience. In the first 
 place, interrogation is here employed in the place of 
 answer or testimony. Moreover, Peter briefly de- 
 fines the power and utility of baptism when he 
 refers it to the conscience, and distinctly requires 
 that confidence which can sustain the sight of God 
 and stand before his tribunal. For in these words 
 he teaches that baptism in its principal part is 
 spiritual, and therefore that it includes in itself re- 
 mission of sins and the reformation of the old man. 
 For how can the conscience be good and pure, un- 
 less our old man has been converted, and we have 
 been renewed to the righteousness of God ? And 
 how shall we answer before God, unless sustained 
 and supported by the gratuitous pardon of sins ? " * 
 I have quoted these passages from two Protest- 
 ant commentators, in order to convince the Pro- 
 testant reader that the texts referred to relate to 
 baptism, and that the parenthesis in the text taken 
 from St. Peter does not detract from their literal 
 meaning and force. Bloomfield is admitted by 
 Calvinists even to be a learned and accurate critic 
 of the text of the New Testament. Calvin is their 
 acknowledged master, and not only esteemed by 
 Calvin in loc. 
 
1 1 2 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 them as a critical, but also as a doctrinal, authority 
 of the highest kind. Both concur in giving to the 
 texts in question the same literal and exegetical 
 interpretation with that which is given by the 
 fathers and Catholic commentators. Baptism is 
 the Laver of Regeneration, and the antitype of the 
 salvation of the family of Noe by water. The 
 spiritual renewal, of which the outward applica- 
 tion of baptismal water to the body is the sac- 
 ramental- sign, is the inward and principal part of 
 baptism. Peace of conscience and the reformation 
 of the heart and life are the proper effects and 
 consequences of this spiritual renovation. In the 
 case of those persons to whom baptism is unpro- 
 fitable, it is rendered unprofitable by their impiety 
 and contempt of the grace of God. This is the 
 sum of the doctrine extracted from the two texts 
 cited in the passages I have quoted from Calvin, 
 and in which Bishop Bloomfield concurs. There 
 are other sentences of Calvin in the context, which 
 I have omitted because they are irrelevant to the 
 precise point of reference, not being the elucida- 
 tion of the literal meaning of the text, but dis- 
 cursions into the field of controversy. The Cal- 
 vinistic tenet of justification by faith alone is, as 
 I have said, wholly incompatible with the doctrine 
 of sacramental justification. A Calvinist cannot 
 consistently hold that baptism is anything more 
 
The Way of Salvation. 113 
 
 than a ceremony which signifies that regeneration 
 which is effected by the immediate act of the Holy 
 Spirit through the sole instrumentality of faith. 
 All that Calvin can say, therefore, in respect to 
 baptism, which sounds like orthodox doctrine, is 
 either a gross contradiction to his own tenets or 
 an illusory form of speech used in order to throw 
 dust in the eyes of the simple. His followers have 
 been more logical or more honest than himself, and 
 have long ceased to think or speak of baptism as 
 the laver of regeneration. It is of no consequence, 
 however, in the interpretation of the Holy Scrip- 
 ture, to know what were the doctrinal tenets of 
 Calvin, or what are those of his disciples. Although 
 they are professedly derived from the Holy Scrip- 
 ture, they are derived by deduction, by reason- 
 ing, which is to a great extent very subtle and 
 remote. The question before us is one which con- 
 cerns a matter much more simple and obvious — 
 namely, the examination of some very plain *texts 
 of Scripture, and of others which, if not so plain in 
 themselves, become so by comparison with others 
 and by the help of an analysis which is not very 
 difficult. The only difficulty lies in prejudice. 
 And on account of this prejudice I have taken 
 more pains than would otherwise have been neces- 
 sary to show by Protestant authority that the texts 
 I have cited refer to sacramental baptism. 
 
H4 2Tk Way of Salvation. 
 
 These texts are now before the reader, and I ask 
 him to consider their plain and obvious statements, 
 and the sense which they convey to the mind when 
 taken literally and combined with each other. They 
 teach us that baptism is the laver of regeneration ; 
 that it has two parts — an outward lustration with 
 water and an inward grace of the Spirit which 
 produces a new birth ; that by it we are saved, re- 
 ceive the remission of sins, are made members of 
 the church and of Christ, are buried with Christ 
 and raised up again with him, receive power to live 
 a holy life, and are entitled to the resurrection of 
 glory and life everlasting. 
 
 I will not refer to tradition and the doctrine of 
 the primitive church as independent authorities. 
 But it is reasonable even for a Calvinist to make 
 use of both as a medium for getting a correct idea 
 of the sense and meaning of the language used by 
 the apostles. The constant and invariable inter- 
 pretation of the fathers, and the unanimous teach- 
 ing of the church during the first six centuries, are a 
 proof of the understanding of the apostolic doctrine 
 which was universal in the apostolic age, and must 
 have been correct. Whoever desires to see the 
 evidence of this unanimous teaching and belief of the 
 Catholic doctrine of baptismal regeneration will find 
 it in Dr. Pusey's learned tract on this subject, which 
 was the eighty-second of the " Tracts for the Times." 
 
The Way of Salvation. 1 1 5 
 
 Before proceeding any farther, I may pause for 
 a short time to answer some few objections and 
 remove some difficulties which will doubtless per- 
 plex some of my readers, and hinder the assent 
 which they should give to what has been thus far 
 proved. 
 
 One may say that if the sacrament of baptism is 
 the only appointed way of obtaining regeneration, 
 there can be no salvation for those who are igno- 
 rant of the existence of the sacrament, or unable to 
 receive it. This is very easily answered. The laws 
 of God are binding on his subjects, but do not bind 
 himself. He can work his own will without making 
 use of the second causes and instruments which he 
 chooses ordinarily to make use of. It is therefore 
 just as easy for him to regenerate a soul without 
 the sacrament of baptism as with it ; and whenever 
 fidelity to his promises or the merciful decrees of 
 his providence make it fitting and good that he 
 should do so, he undoubtedly does regenerate the 
 soul by the immediate act of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 It may be said, again, that if the sacrament re- 
 generates by its own intrinsic efficacy, a wicked 
 man who receives baptism validly will be made 
 a child of God and an heir of heaven without any 
 inward and personal change from sin to holiness. 
 This is not so. For, as has been already said, the 
 want of a proper disposition in the subject prevents 
 
1 1 6 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 and suspends the due effect of the sacrament until 
 his disposition is changed. 
 
 And once more, the sins committed by those who 
 were certainly fit subjects for baptism, and therefore 
 must have received its full effect when they were 
 baptized, as in the case of all who were baptized in 
 infancy, may be pointed at as an evidence that they 
 never received sanctifying grace. But this objec- 
 tion springs altogether from the false conception of 
 grace which belongs to the Calvinistic, but not to 
 the Catholic, doctrine. According to Calvinism, 
 grace works irresistibly, and can never be lost ; 
 wherefore one who is once regenerated can never 
 fall back into a state of condemnation, but must go 
 on, undergoing a progressive sanctification until he 
 is finally glorified. I have already refuted this most 
 false and pernicious opinion, and shall do so still 
 more fully hereafter. At present I will merely 
 state the true doctrine, in order to show how com- 
 pletely the objection disappears as soon as this 
 doctrine is perceived. The grace of God works 
 irresistibly only upon the subject who places no 
 obstacle in the way of it by his own free-will. 
 Every one who is in the exercise of his reason, 
 therefore, can hinder the efficacy of grace if he 
 will. Moreover, he must actively correspond to 
 grace, and work with it, in order that it may pro- 
 duce in him the fruit of actual virtues and «ood 
 
The Way of Salvation. 1 1 7 
 
 works. Therefore, if he either resists and quenches 
 grace in his soul by deadly sin, or neglects to co- 
 operate with it by doing good works, he falls back 
 into the state of spiritual death. The regenerate 
 are placed on probation, as were Adam and Eve in 
 tlieir primitive state. They are free to keep the 
 commandments of God or to break them. The 
 majority do commit more or less sin, and some die 
 impenitent. But this is no evidence that they were 
 not regenerated in baptism. It proves that only 
 infants are saved b'y baptism alone, and that there- 
 fore there are many other tilings necessary to an 
 adult, that he may be saved, besides the grace of 
 regeneration. But this is all it does prove. 
 
 The objection that the doctrine of sacramental 
 regeneration interposes something between the soul 
 and the. Holy Spirit is futile. The blood of Christ 
 is not the Holy Spirit, and yet no believer in the 
 rede'mption of man by the death of our Lord will 
 venture to deny that we are washed and sanctified 
 by his blood. An instrument does not separate 
 an effect from its cause, but brings it into 
 contact with it. Christ is our Mediator by the 
 operation of his human nature, as well as by that 
 of his divine nature. And the intervention or 
 interposition of his human nature with its proper 
 operation between the human race and God does 
 not divide, but unites, these two extremes. The 
 
l t 8 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 Holy Spirit acts as the efficient cause of the sanc- 
 tification of men, proceeding from, and sent by, the 
 Son, equally with the Father, operating through 
 the human nature and human operation of the 
 same Divine Son, as an instrumental cause. It is 
 the Incarnation which interposes a medium be- 
 tween the human nature of men and the divine 
 nature of the Holy Spirit — that is, of the Three 
 Persons in God, the Father and the Son and the 
 Holy Ghost, whose nature is one and the same. 
 It is impossible, therefore, for a believer in the 
 Incarnation to object to a sacramental instrument 
 or medium, simply because it is something between 
 the soul of man and the Divine Spirit. 
 
 Neither can he say that it substitutes another 
 medium in place of the true medium between the 
 human and divine nature, which is the humanity of 
 Christ. It is not another, for it is subordinate to 
 its principal, and the vehicle of its action. The 
 virtue of the blood of Christ gives efficacy to the 
 water of baptism. It is impossible to show that 
 there is any necessary reason why the Mediator of 
 Redemption should always exercise his office in his 
 own proper person and by his own immediate 
 acts. It is enough if he gives the authority and 
 communicates the virtue which reside in him to 
 subordinate agents and instruments, to transmit 
 and communicate to individual men the effect of 
 
The Way of Salvation. 1 1 9 
 
 those essential acts which he has accomplished in 
 his own person. His own institution and com- 
 mandment prove that he has sanctified and con- 
 secrated visible elements and signs as the vehicle 
 of his grace. And it is an insufferable piece of 
 audacity, as well as a consummate folly, to raise 
 an objection against the plain and obvious sense of 
 his own words. It is our part to ascertain what are 
 the sacraments, and what are their excellence and 
 utility, from the evidence of the divine word, and 
 to give our unhesitating, unwavering assent to that 
 divine word, so soon as we apprehend it, without cavil 
 or objection, without regard to our own prejudices 
 or to the mere opinions of men. If there are diffi- 
 culties existing in the mind without any wilful fault 
 of the individual in whose mind they exist, it is 
 right to seek for a solution. If they are solved 
 in a satisfactory manner, so much the better. 
 But if they are not completely removed, it is our 
 strict duty to neglect them and pass them by, and 
 to assent to revealed truth, in spite of all objections, 
 as soon as it is sufficiently proposed. There are 
 many antecedent difficulties which hinder a person 
 brought up in the Calvinistic tenets from receiving 
 the true doctrine of the sacraments, and other doc- 
 trines relating to the way of salvation which have 
 a common principle in the Catholic doctrine of 
 justification. I have briefly replied to some of 
 
i 20 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 these antecedent objections, and intend to do so 
 still further in the course of this treatise. I cannot, 
 however, do this at any great length, and must re- 
 fer the reader who requires fuller explanations to 
 other and more complete sources of instruction. 
 To return, therefore, to the principal thread of my 
 discourse. I repeat again that I have given clear 
 and sufficient proof from the Scripture of the doc- 
 trine of baptismal regeneration. That is to say, I 
 have proved that baptism is a sacrament, insti- 
 tuted and endowed with an efficacious force by our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, through which, as an instrument 
 of his grace, the Holy Spirit imparts the gift of 
 regeneration to every one who duly receives it. 
 This has been proved in two ways — that is, by a 
 negative and indirect argument, and by one which 
 is direct and positive. It has been proved indi- 
 rectly, by the refutation of the opposite and con- 
 trary doctrine of justification by faith alone. This 
 doctrine starts from the assumption that God wills 
 the salvation of the elect only; that for them alone 
 Christ has died ; and that by the simple fact of his 
 meritorious death their salvation has been accom- 
 plished and secured. It explains the way by which 
 they are redeemed as being a substitution of the Re- 
 deemer in their place, both to bear the punishment 
 which is due to them, and to fulfil the obedience or 
 righteousness which they owe to God, so that he is 
 
The Way of Salvation. 121 
 
 condemned for their sins imputed to him, and they 
 are justified by his righteousness imputed to them. 
 Faith is explained as a subjective apprehension and 
 acceptance of this finished and complete justifica- 
 tion and salvation, the instrument by which the 
 elect are made to participate actually in the merits 
 of Christ, which are theirs from eternity in the de- 
 cree of God. This doctrine teaches, moreover, by 
 logical necessity, that the justification which the 
 elect hold by faith, being complete and absolute, 
 can neither be diminished by sin nor increased by 
 holiness, much less ever lost or forfeited after being 
 once obtained. Sanctification is therefore a mere 
 consequence and accidental quality of justification, 
 which simply begins the preparation of the soul for 
 the enjoyment of paradise, but is in no wise the 
 formal cause of its acceptance before God or its 
 final beatitude. The man who has faith is there- 
 fore always, though still personally a sinner, and 
 continually committing sins which are worthy of 
 death, in a state of perfect and unbroken friend- 
 ship with God, and entitled to go immediately to 
 heaven as soon as he dies. On this system, of 
 course, sacraments are merely empty and useless 
 forms to those who are not elected ; and to those 
 who are, simply signs of the grace they have already 
 received or are destined to receive at a future time 
 through faith. 
 
122 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 In opposition to this doctrine, I have proved by 
 an argument, directly derived from the plain and 
 obvious sense of the Holy Scripture, that God wills 
 the salvation, and has provided in his Eternal and 
 Incarnate Son for the salvation of the human race 
 en masse ; that, nevertheless, the salvation of in- 
 dividuals is not by this made secure and certain, 
 but only possible, and is only actually secured by 
 the fulfilment of certain further conditions, partly 
 on the side of God, and partly on the side of man. 
 On man's side, I have proved that faith is not the 
 sole condition, but only the first among several, all 
 alike essential. Moreover, that faith is distinctively 
 a supernatural belief in the truths of divine revela- 
 tion, and, together with repentance and a resolu- 
 tion to keep God's commandments, constitutes the 
 necessary and proper disposition in an adult person 
 for receiving regeneration and sanctifying grace. I 
 have also proved that the internal justifying prin- 
 ciple, or formal reason whereby one is really made 
 and accounted just before God, is fides formatd, 
 or the habit of faith informed and vivified by 
 charity or the love of God. This fides formata, 
 which is the living, active principle of a new nature, 
 and is communicated by the Holy Spirit, can only 
 be given by the regeneration of the soul, which is 
 dead by original sin, and by actual sin also if the 
 guilt of actual sin has been incurred. The only 
 
The Way of Salvation, 123 
 
 question is, therefore, How is the grace of regenera- 
 tion imparted ? There is no reason why it should 
 not be given through baptism ; for there are none 
 of the conditions which precede baptism, which 
 either singly or conjointly demand for their verifi- 
 cation that the subject in whom they exist should 
 be already justified. The negative and indirect 
 proof of baptismal regeneration is therefore per- 
 fect. 
 
 The positive proof is contained in the repeated 
 and distinct declarations of our Lord and the apos- 
 tles, which I need not now resume. It is most clear 
 and certain that a person desiring to be saved, and 
 coming to one of the apostles to learn the way of 
 salvation, would be taught that God had provided 
 for him in Jesus Christ all that was requisite, and 
 that he could therefore secure his own salvation by 
 fulfilling certain conditions: that he must believe 
 in Jesus Christ and his doctrine, must detest and 
 renounce sin, resolve to begin a new life and keep 
 the commandments, and, after suitable preparation, 
 come to the font of baptism, where he would re- 
 ceive regeneration, remission of sins, and a complete 
 justification through the merits of Christ. 
 
 The exposition of the true Catholic doctrine of 
 the Way of Salvation as contained in the Holy 
 Scripture is now, therefore, up to a certain point, 
 complete. " Baptism doth also now save us by the 
 
124 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 resurrection of Jesus Christ," as the Prince of the 
 Apostles declares in plain terms. A Calvinist 
 might easily conclude from this that the matter is 
 now ended, and that one who has been made by 
 baptism a child of God, a member of Christ, and 
 an heir of the kingdom of heaven, has acquired an 
 indefeasible and inamissible right to eternal salva- 
 tion. He is accustomed to consider the matter as 
 settled once for all between the soul and God as 
 soon as the individual has received justification and 
 regeneration ; that he has been transferred irrevoca- 
 bly from death to life, and can never more incur 
 eternal condemnation. But this is a great mistake. 
 The very idea of justification by a real sanctifica- 
 tion which is inherent in the subject, in opposition 
 to that which is by an imputation of a righteous- 
 ness extrinsic to the subject, makes the continuance 
 and perpetuity and consummation of this justice 
 dependent on the permanence of the personal sanc- 
 tity of the subject of grace. Only the infant, or 
 the adult who departs from this life immediately 
 after baptism, receives a finished salvation by bap- 
 tism alone. The one who attains to the use of rea- 
 son, and is subjected to a probation and trial, must 
 keep his sanctity by making those holy acts in which 
 the principle of supernatural life becomes operative. 
 How can faith which worketh by love subsist, ex- 
 cept by acts of faith and love ? If the inward prin- 
 
The Way of Salvation* 125 
 
 clple of justification is destroyed by sins against faith 
 or charity, the justification which depends on it 
 must be lost. Unless, therefore, every baptized 
 person receives a grace which efficaciously and in- 
 fallibly prevents him from sinning, he may sin and 
 lose the grace of God ; and unless he receives an 
 infallible gift of perseverance, he may be finally lost. 
 No one will pretend that baptism either gives a 
 right to confirmation in grace or to final perseve- 
 rance. It is the beginning of salvation, it places 
 the soul in the state of grace and salvation, but it is 
 necessary that many other graces should be given, 
 and many conditions fulfilled, in order that the in- 
 heritance of the kingdom of heaven may be actually 
 obtained in possession. 
 
 We may. conclude, therefore, that there ought to 
 be more sacraments than one. We find that it is 
 the pleasure of the divine Mediator and King of 
 men to grant regeneration and remission of sins 
 through a sacrament. We learn from this example 
 what is the nature of a sacrament. And we there- 
 fore conclude that the Lord, who always acts by 
 fixed laws and according to a plan, has provided all 
 the other sacraments which are requisite to com- 
 plete the work begun in baptism, and that they are 
 all of the same essential nature, considered as to 
 their generic or sacramental entity. We conclude 
 also the institution of a New Law in place of the Old 
 
126 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 Law, in which there is the most clear and ample 
 code of doctrinal, religious, and moral precepts, di- 
 recting the Christian what he must believe and 
 what he must do in order to attain his end, ever- 
 lasting salvation. It is evident, therefore, that my 
 work is not yet finished in showing how one is to 
 obtain the beginning of salvation, and pointing out 
 the gate of entrance into the way of life. It is ne- 
 cessary to point out, still further, what are the most 
 essential means and conditions to be used and com- 
 plied with, in order that one may walk in that way 
 to the end, and pass out of the opposite gate which 
 opens into life eternal. 
 
CHAPTER FOURTH. 
 
 Necessity of Means for trie Remission of Sin after Baptism — Ve- 
 nial and Mortal Sin — The Sacrament of Penance — Extreme 
 Unction — Purgatory — Means for the Preservation and Increase 
 of Grace and Holiness — The Holy Eucharist the great Source 
 of Grace and Nourishment for the Soul. 
 
 \J{ WHOEVER believes in regeneration, or the 
 * * new birth of the Holy Spirit, must admit 
 that it produces in the renewed and forgiven sinner, 
 together with the abolition of original and actual 
 sin, a new and holy principle of spiritual life and 
 activity. He is born of God, after the image of 
 Jesus Christ, and bears therefore in himself the like- 
 ness of the Eternal Son, who is the image of the 
 Father; and is also the temple of the Holy Spirit, 
 who dwells in him with his sevenfold gifts. The 
 image of Christ cannot coexist with the image of 
 Satan in the soul, or the Holy Spirit dwell in a soul 
 which is under the dominion of sin. The principle 
 of life excludes the principle of death, and viceversd ; 
 and therefore sanctifying grace excludes all deadly 
 sin, and deadly sin extinguishes sanctifying grace. 
 The soul which has been made alive must continue 
 to live and exercise the functions and acts of spiri- 
 tual life ; otherwise it lapses into the state of death, 
 
 127 
 
128 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 from which it can only be recovered by a new spiri> 
 tual resurrection. I have already proved that a 
 mere trust in the merits of Christ, which the Cal- 
 vinists call faith, cannot of itself give life to the 
 soul or make it just before God, and that faith, 
 taken in its true sense, is a dead faith, and there- 
 fore not life-giving, unless it is joined with charity. 
 It is, therefore, the living faith working by love, or 
 fides formata, which is the principle of spiritual 
 life, and must be preserved if one would continue 
 in grace, and must persevere until death if one 
 would hold out to the end in the friendship of God 
 and never forfeit the rights of his baptism. It be- 
 longs to the very essence of the love of God that 
 this love be supreme and exclude all contrary love 
 of self and other creatures. That is, it is necessary 
 that God should be the final end toward which the 
 intention is directed, and that no creature should be 
 substituted for God as the final end or chief good. 
 He who wills the end wills the means ; and there- 
 fore he who directs the intention of his will to God 
 must keep the laws he has made in order to direct 
 all moral actions towards their final end. Sin con- 
 sists in turning from God to the created good as our 
 final end, by a voluntary transgression of one of 
 these precepts. Whoever sins, by the very fact 
 turns himself from God as his final end, and thereby 
 violates the principle of charity, acts on a directly 
 
• The Way of Salvation. 1 29 
 
 opposite and contrary principle. This contrary 
 principle has therefore expelled the principle of 
 charity from his soul, and extinguished its spiritual 
 life. Keeping the commandments of God and 
 avoiding all grievous sins is, then, a necessary con- 
 dition which the regenerate man must fulfil in or- 
 der to remain in the state of justification. It follows 
 from this that God gives to the baptized sufficient 
 grace to keep his law, and that by the aid of grace 
 it is possible to go from the baptismal font to the 
 grave without ever staining the robe of innocence 
 by a single grievous sin. It is too plain to need 
 proof that it is also easy to sin. And if one sins, 
 the same grace which at first sanctified him must 
 sanctify him again, or he is lost for ever. The good- 
 ness and mercy of God, who wills the salvation of 
 all men, so long as their probation continues, must 
 have provided special means for increasing and 
 strengthening spiritual life in the living, and for 
 raising again and purifying the fallen and guilty. 
 The Way of Salvation is therefore a way provided 
 by our Lord Jesus Christ, in which Christians work 
 out their salvation and advance toward heaven by 
 keeping the commandments, with special means for 
 obtaining strength and perseverance, and other 
 means for obtaining pardon and purification when 
 they fall hy the way and defile themselves by sin. 
 All this; which is only a just and necessary deduc- 
 
130 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 tion from the truths already proved from the Holy 
 Scripture, is capable of its own separate and inde- 
 pendent proof from the same divine source. And 
 this proof I shall now proceed to give. 
 
 The language of St. Paul is perfectly plain and ex- 
 plicit on this subject : " There is therefore now no 
 condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." 
 All sins have been remitted, and they have no guilt 
 upon them which requires an eternal punishment. 
 But who are they who are in Christ Jesus ? They are 
 those " who walk not after the flesh, but after the 
 Spirit." How have they been freed from condem- 
 nation and enabled to walk after the Spirit, that is, 
 by the inspiration and aid of grace to live a life holy 
 and free from sin? "There is therefore now no 
 condemnation. . . . For the law of the Spirit 
 of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the 
 law of sin and death." Christ, having by his death 
 expiated sin and merited grace, has conferred on 
 the regenerate a power which is above the forces 
 of nature, to keep that law which they otherwise 
 would be morally unable to keep so entirely and 
 perfectly as to be free from all sin. " For what the 
 law could not do, in that it was weak through the 
 flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of 
 sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh : 
 that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled 
 in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the 
 
The Way of Salvation. 131 
 
 Spirit." Walking after the Spirit means, therefore, 
 fulfilling the righteousness of the law or keeping 
 the commandments of God. This is confirmed by 
 what follows in the context : " The carnal mind 
 is enmity against God : for it is not subject to the 
 law of God, neither indeed can be." The argument 
 of this passage is easily converted into a regular 
 syllogism. 
 
 All that which is not subject to the law of God is 
 enmity against God. But the carnal mind is not 
 subject to the law of God. Therefore the carnal 
 mind is. enmity against God. The apostle proceeds 
 then to draw the necessary inference that whoever 
 has a carnal mind has enmity against God, or 
 is the enemy of God, and consequently is the ob- 
 ject of God's enmity. " So then they that are in 
 the flesh cannot please God." Walking after the 
 flesh, therefore, means not being subject to — that is, 
 violating — the law of God, or sinning. Whoever sins 
 must then become the enemy of God and incur the 
 penalty of death. " To be carnally minded is 
 death." "If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die." 
 In other words, mortal sin is the death of the soul. 
 And consequently, whoever is in the state of sanc- 
 tifying grace and of friendship with God must be 
 free from mortal sin, must fulfil the righteousness 
 of the law, must keep all the commandments of 
 God, and preserve his justification by preserving the 
 
132 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 inward sanctity given him in baptism and persever- 
 ing in good works. This is expressly declared by 
 St. Paul in a distinct statement : " But ye are not in 
 the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of 
 God dwell in you." " If ye through the Spirit do 
 mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as 
 many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the 
 sons of God." * 
 
 St. John teaches the same doctrine : " Beloved, 
 now are we the sons of God. . . . Whosoever 
 committeth sin transgresseth also the law : for sin 
 is the transgression of the law. . . . He that 
 committeth sin is of the devil. . . . Whoso- 
 ever is born of God doth not commit sin ; for his 
 seed remaineth in him : and he cannot sin, because 
 he is born of God. In this the children of God are 
 manifest, and the children of the devil : whosoever 
 doeth not righteousness is not of God." f It is 
 plain, then, that a person who is the child of God 
 and led by the Spirit cannot commit deadly sin 
 while he is a child of God, or that the state of filial 
 love and the state of sin cannot exist at the same 
 time in the same person. St. John expressly 
 teaches that the principle of sanctifying grace ex- 
 cludes sin by its very nature, and that the principle 
 of sin excludes sanctifying grace, which is the spirit- 
 ual life of the soul, and consequently produces 
 
 * Rom. viii. 1-16. \ 1 Epistle St. John iii. 2-10. 
 
The Way of Salvation. 133 
 
 death, or rather, it is itself the death of the soul 
 by its very nature. 
 
 The justified man can therefore fall from the 
 state of justification, and he does so fall when- 
 ever he commits a grievous and deadly sin. 
 Moreover, he can die in that state, and incur eternal 
 condemnation. It is evident from what has been 
 already proved that if he sins he falls from grace, 
 and consequently, if he dies without forgiveness, 
 must be lost for ever. It is also manifest that he 
 can sin, unless he is confirmed in grace ; and perse- 
 vere in sin to the end, unless he has received an 
 indefeasible gift of final perseverance. But the gift 
 of regeneration does not include in itself either 
 of these gifts, which are additional and purely 
 gratuitous gifts, even in the case of the adopted 
 and justified sons of God, however holy they 
 may be. 
 
 God, through the prophet Ezekiel, declared to 
 the people of Israel that they were to live by keep- 
 ing his commandments, and should die if they broke 
 them. " I am the Lord your God ; walk in my 
 statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them, 
 . . . which if a man do, he shall even live in 
 them." " But when the righteous turneth away 
 from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, 
 and doeth according to all the abominations that 
 the wicked man doeth, shall he live ? All his right- 
 
134 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 eousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned ; 
 in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his 
 sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die." * 
 So also St. Peter: " If after they have escaped the 
 pollutions of the world through the knowledge of 
 the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again 
 entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is 
 worse with them than the beginning. For it had 
 been better for them not to have known the way of 
 righteousness, than, after they have known it, to 
 turn from the holy commandment delivered unto 
 them. But it is happened unto them according to 
 the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit 
 again ; and the sow that was washed to her wallow- 
 ing in the mire." f And St. Paul : " If we sin wil- 
 fully after that we have received the knowledge of 
 the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, 
 but a certain fearful looking-for of judgment and 
 fiery indignation." " Leaving the principles of the 
 doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection. 
 . . . And this will we do, if God permit. For it 
 is impossible for those who were once enlightened, 
 and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made 
 partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the 
 good word of God, and the powers of the world to 
 come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again 
 unto repentance ; seeing they crucify to themselves 
 
 * Ezck. xx. 19, 21 ; xviii. 24. f 2 Epistle St. Peter ii. 20-22. 
 
The Way of Salvation, 135 
 
 the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open 
 shame." * 
 
 It would be easy to multiply proofs from all parts 
 of the Holy Scripture of the doctrine that man is 
 accounted before God as just or righteous on the 
 ground of a real, personal, and inherent righteous- 
 ness, whose principle is a grace of sanctifkation im- 
 parted by the Divine Spirit, while its operation con- 
 sists in doing good works ; and which may be, as it 
 too often is, destroyed by the commission of sin. 
 Those which have been given are, however, amply 
 sufficient. Such being the case, it becomes a most 
 momentous question what provision our Lord has 
 made for the forgiveness of sins after baptism, and 
 the restoration of the grace which has been lost. 
 
 A truly earnest and sincere person who really 
 desires to give his whole attention to the work of 
 securing the permanent and eternal union of his 
 soul with our Lord Jesus Christ, and whose mind is 
 imbued with Calvinistic and puritanical ideas, will 
 very naturally find much to trouble and perplex 
 him in the passages just cited from the Holy Scrip- 
 ture, and others of a like tenor. On the one side, 
 he cannot fail to see that he must be saved from the 
 dominion of sin, and keep the commandments of 
 God in all points, if he would obtain peace of con- 
 science and a reasonable assurance of the friendship 
 * Heb. x. 26, 27. 
 
136 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 of God. On the other, his extremely rigorous views 
 of the divine law and of the guilt and penalty at- 
 tached to the smallest offences, as well as to the 
 involuntary and unavoidable movements of what 
 he calls inbred or indwelling sin, must make it ap- 
 pear to him to be morally or even physically impos- 
 sible to obtain and practise that holiness which 
 seems to him sufficiently perfect to satisfy the inex- 
 orable demands of the divine justice. And if he 
 examines the New Testament to find out how far 
 and by what means he can obtain a sure pardon for 
 the sins he has committed since the time of his bap- 
 tism, he will be still more bewildered by the paucity 
 and obscurity of the statements which it contains, 
 and by the apparent teaching of some passages that 
 there are sins which are unpardonable. Every one 
 who is familiar with the religious biography of the 
 Calvinistic sects knows how deeply tinged with mel- 
 ancholy is that which is called the religious experi- 
 ence of those who have been the most noted for 
 piety among them. The fearful spectre of the 
 " unpardonable sin " has haunted the imagination 
 of many a one among them, and those who have 
 read Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress " cannot have 
 forgotten the striking and fearful picture there given 
 of the man at the Interpreter's house, who had 
 " sinned away his day of grace." From the same 
 cause, those members of the Church of England who 
 
The Way of Salvation. 137 
 
 began the great movement of Oxford, while they 
 revived the old Catholic doctrine of baptismal rege- 
 neration and justification by inherent righteousness, 
 set forth in the darkest colors the enormity of post- 
 baptismal sin, and the uncertainty as well as difficulty 
 of obtaining remission of its guilt. The mixture of 
 certain Catholic with certain other Calvinistic ele- 
 ments makes a most fearful compound. Jansenists 
 and a certain class of Anglicans have accordingly 
 made out of the easy yoke and light burden of the 
 religion of Christ something as torturing and unbear- 
 able as the cangue which the tyrants of Tonquin lay 
 on the necks of their prisoners. And it is therefore 
 with the greatest justice and reason that Bishop 
 Mcllvaine has denounced the insupportable rigor 
 of a system which combines that which is most 
 severe in both the Catholic and the Protestant doc- 
 trines, without presenting to the penitent sinner the 
 provision of mercy contained in either. With the 
 utmost logical force the same writer shows that the 
 fundamental Catholic principle of justification must 
 either be rejected totally or followed up to all its 
 consequences by embracing the whole Catholic doc- 
 trine of the Way of Salvation.* A law which is 
 above the condition of human nature, even in its 
 regenerate state, is the despair of all men ; and one 
 which does not contain ample provision for mercy 
 * Vid. Mcllvaine on Oxford Divinity. 
 
138 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 and pardon is the despair of all sinners. It is neces- 
 sary, therefore, to examine, in the first place, what 
 that law is, and what are the sins which bring its 
 eternal penalty upon the conscience ; and after- 
 wards to consider the means of pardon which have 
 been provided. 
 
 That human nature remains in some respects in 
 the state to which it was degraded by the sin of 
 Adam, after it has been regenerated in Christ, no 
 one can possibly question who believes in the doc- 
 trine that Adam was endowed with the gifts of in- 
 tegrity and immortality, and lost them by the fall. 
 It is just as certain that concupiscence remains in the 
 regenerate as that the doom of death still remains 
 upon them. St. Paul calls this remaining effect of 
 original sin a " law of sin." " I delight in the law 
 of God after the inward man : but I see another 
 law in my members, warring against the law of my 
 mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law 
 of sin which is in my members." * It is not 
 necessary to discuss the question how far this and 
 other texts connected with it refer to the unre- 
 generate or the regenerate state. That the sin- 
 ner is in captivity to, or under the servitude of, this 
 law, before he is liberated by grace, is evident. 
 The justified man may be said to be also in cap- 
 tivity in a different sense. That is, he is under the 
 
 * Romans vii. 22, 23. 
 
The Way of Salvation. 139 
 
 painful bondage which ties his immortal spirit to a 
 frail, mortal body which weighs it down, and makes 
 it necessary to struggle against infirmities and temp- 
 tations. But that he is freed from the captivity of 
 sin, or from the dominion of this law in the mem- 
 bers by the grace of Christ, is expressly declared by 
 St. Paul : " For when we were in the flesh, the 
 motions (rendered in the margin passions) of sins, 
 which were by the law, did work in our members to 
 bring forth fruit unto death. But now we are de- 
 livered from the law, that being dead wherein we 
 were held."* And again: "If Christ be in you, 
 the body is dead because of sin ; but the Spirit is 
 life because of righteousness. . . . Therefore, 
 brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after 
 the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die : 
 but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of 
 the body, ye shall live." f Evidently, St. Paul 
 teaches that there is a conflict in the regenerate 
 between the superior nature co-operating with grace 
 and the inferior nature with its concupiscence, in 
 which the just man is victorious. He is not free 
 from the inclination and temptation to sin, nor can 
 he expel from himself or forcibly quell the repug- 
 nance and resistance of his lower nature to the dic- 
 tates of reason and the Holy Spirit. But he can, 
 and while he remains just he does, with his deliber* 
 
 * Romans vii. 5, 6. f Ibid. viii. 10, 12, 13, 
 
140 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 ate free-will obey the law of God and refrain from 
 grievous and deadly sins, as I have already proved. 
 Concupiscence and its involuntary motions are not, 
 therefore, called sin in the proper sense of the word. 
 They can only be called sin improperly, because 
 they come from sin and lead to sin ; and therefore 
 they can and do co-exist with the state of grace 
 and with true Christian righteousness. Sin, in the 
 active sense, is voluntary transgression of God's 
 law, and in the passive sense the death of the soul, 
 produced by transgression. The just man is there- 
 fore free from sin. " For the law of the Spirit of 
 life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law 
 of sin and death." * u Whosoever abideth in him 
 sinneth not." f Yet the inclination to sin and the 
 involuntary, indeliberate first motions of the law 
 of sin and death in the lower nature remain in the 
 just. Wherefore they are not sin, and do not sepa- 
 rate the soul from God. 
 
 Nevertheless, St. James declares that " in many 
 things we offend all," % an d St. John, that " if we 
 say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves." § None 
 but deluded victims of spiritual pride will pretend 
 that it is morally possible to avoid all sins for any 
 considerable length of time without an extraordi- 
 nary grace. We are obliged to confess ourselves to 
 
 * Romans viii. 2. % St. James iii. 2. 
 
 f 1 Epistle St. John iii. b. § 1 Epistle St. John i. S. 
 
The Way of Salvation. 141 
 
 be sinners, or else to be manifest hypocrites, so great 
 is the fragility and inconstancy of human nature, even 
 in the most perfect. If every sin, therefore, how- 
 ever minute and inconsiderate it may be, destroy 
 the life of the soul and merit eternal death, the 
 Gospel of Christ is of very little value to us, and 
 our prospects are very gloomy for salvation. How, 
 then, can we say, " There is therefore now no con- 
 demnation to them which are in Christ Jesus," * 
 or that " his commandments are not grievous " ? f 
 There is no way out of this difficulty without making 
 the distinction of the Catholic doctrine between 
 mortal and venial sin. It is necessary to admit that 
 there are sins which destroy the life of grace, and 
 sins which do not destroy this life, but only injure 
 more or less the health and strength and beauty of 
 the soul. 
 
 When we consider the question how sins are to 
 be remitted and the soul delivered from their guilt 
 and stain, the difficulty of deciding this most im- 
 portant matter from the Scripture alone becomes 
 very great. In regard to venial sins there is no spe- 
 cial difficulty. For the love of God in a soul united 
 to him by grace is evidently sufficient to expel 
 venial sin, if one will only make an effort to in- 
 crease this love, and resolve to obey its impulse in 
 all things, small as well as great. This applies to 
 * Romans viii. i. \ i Epistle St. John v. 3. 
 
142 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 the habit of venial sin, or tepidity in the service of 
 God. And as to sins of inconsideration, they are 
 easily effaced as fast as they are committed, by those 
 acts which are made so soon as a person recollects 
 himself and reflects on the actions of the day. 
 Moreover, there are numerous passages in the Holy 
 Scripture, familiar to all who read it, which express 
 the willingness of God to forgive these faults and 
 trespasses of his children as soon as they sincerely 
 ask pardon. 
 
 But in regard to mortal sin, anyone who seeks to 
 find out from the New Testament alone, by his own 
 study, how one who has again incurred death and 
 condemnation after receiving baptism is to be re- 
 stored, will find himself very much perplexed. 
 What sins are mortal, whether any or every mor- 
 tal sin is remissible, and, if so, by what means, 
 are most momentous and practical questions, on 
 which it is necessary to have clear and explicit in- 
 formation. This will be looked for in vain, and cer- 
 tain passages which I have already cited appear to 
 teach that there are irremissible sins, without clearly 
 specifying which they are. To these I add now one 
 more : " All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be 
 forgiven unto men : but the blasphemy against the 
 Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And 
 whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of 
 man, it shall be forgiven him : but whosoever 
 
The Way of Salvation. 143 
 
 speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be 
 forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the 
 world to come."* And St. Paul says of one who 
 sins wilfully after receiving the knowledge of the 
 truth, that he " hath done despite unto the Spirit of 
 grace." \ 
 
 St. John appears to say that there is no use in 
 praying for one who has committed mortal sin. " If 
 any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto 
 death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for 
 them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto 
 death : I do not say that he shall pray for it."\ Yet 
 the expression, " give him life for them that sin not 
 unto death," indicates that mortal sin is referred to 
 in the former as well as the latter clause, since one 
 who has need to be restored to life is dead. And 
 St. James says that " he which converteth a sinner 
 from the error of his way shall save a soul from 
 death."% St. Paul, also, sanctioned the absolution 
 of a sinner at Corinth whom he had excommunicated 
 for taking his step-mother to wife — certainly a 
 grievous sin. That those who sin grievously after 
 baptism are not altogether shut out from the hope 
 of pardon may be regarded as taught with suffi- 
 cient explicitness in the Scripture. But what is 
 needed is the assurance that there is remission for 
 
 * St. Matthew xii. 31, 32. \ 1 Epistle St. John v. 16 
 
 f Hebrews x. 29. § St. James v. 20. 
 
144 ?*&* Way of Salvation. 
 
 every sinner and for all sins, and definite informa- 
 tion about the conditions of pardon. This will be 
 sought for in vain so long as we confine ourselves 
 exclusively to the texts of Scripture. A Catholic 
 has the authority of tradition and of the church to 
 interpret the Scripture and supply what is lacking 
 in it. But the Scripture itself furnishes only one 
 perfectly clear and explicit statement on the sub- 
 ject, which is that sins are remitted by the power 
 of the keys which Christ committed to the apostles : 
 " Receive ye the Holy Ghost : whosesoever sins ye 
 remit, they are remitted unto them." * This is very 
 clear so far as it goes. It proves that the apostles 
 could remit sins. And we may deduce from it with 
 great probability that, since the power is conceded 
 without any express limitation, it was unlimited, and 
 that, in order to be exercised judicially, it implies 
 confession of sins on the part of the penitent. Yet 
 if the difficulty should occur to the mind of one 
 seeking after the truth, that these very apostles have 
 declared some sins to be irremissible, what solution 
 could he find which is perfectly satisfactory ? Our 
 Lord said also : " Whosesoever sins ye shall retain, 
 they are retained." And what if, in the passages 
 cited above, they have declared that some sins are 
 always retained and never remitted ? A supreme 
 court defines its own powers, and its judgments are 
 * St. John xx. 22, 23. 
 
The Way of Salvation. 145 
 
 the authentic interpretation of the law. It is neces- 
 sary, therefore, to have recourse to this apostolic 
 tribunal, to this authority which bears the keys of 
 the kingdom of heaven, in order to ascertain what 
 sinners can be absolved, what sins can be remitted, 
 and what are the conditions to be complied with by 
 the penitent. 
 
 The Scripture conducts us, as it were, to the very 
 door of the Sacrament of Penance, but no further. 
 It is impossible to understand clearly and with 
 perfect certitude what it really does teach respect- 
 ing the remission of sins after baptism, without re- 
 curring to the Unwritten Word, the doctrine which 
 Christ taught the apostles, but which they did not 
 record, leaving it to the channel of orah tradition 
 and the teaching of their successors, to whom they 
 bequeathed their power. When the light of this 
 Catholic doctrine is turned on the inspired written 
 documents of faith, we are enabled to see clearly 
 that sense which was before obscure, and to read 
 in them sufficient indications of the way of salva- 
 tion from sin committed after baptism, whether 
 venial or mortal, and from its temporal or eternal 
 penalties. 
 
 This Catholic doctrine teaches that there is no 
 sin which is unpardonable, and that every sinner, 
 however numerous or grievous his sins, may be 
 forgiven and saved, if he will repent. The declara- 
 
146 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 tions with which the Holy Scripture abounds of 
 the mercy of God are therefore to be understood 
 in their universal and unlimited sense, in reference 
 as well to those who have been baptized as to those 
 who have not. Those obscure and difficult pas- 
 sages which seem to make exceptions in respect to 
 the remission of sins by the power of the keys, 
 must therefore be interpreted in harmony with this 
 doctrine. The most alarming and perplexing of 
 all these texts — one which St. Augustine says is not 
 exceeded in difficulty by any passage of the whole 
 Scripture — places, indeed, as much apparent limita- 
 tion on the efficacy of baptism as on that of 
 absolution by the power of the keys. I refer to 
 the text from St. Matthew respecting the sin 
 against the Holy Spirit, which sin, whatever it 
 may be, can be committed by a person who has 
 not been baptized as well as by a recreant Chris- 
 tian. In fact, the very occasion of this terrible 
 sentence from the lips of the Judge of men was 
 a blasphemy of certain Pharisees who had never 
 received the baptism of Christ. If baptism has 
 the power of washing away all sin, therefore, not- 
 withstanding what our Lord said of the sin against 
 the Holy Spirit, there is no reason why absolution 
 may not remit this same sin, and, a fortiori, all 
 lesser sins, if the sinner is a baptized person. And 
 as it is a settled point of Catholic doctrine that 
 
The Way of Salvation. 147 
 
 baptism and absolution can remit all sins without 
 any exception, the passages of Scripture which 
 appear to affirm the contrary must be interpreted 
 in harmony with this doctrine, and with the far 
 more numerous declarations of the Scripture by 
 which this doctrine is supported. The church gives 
 us only a negative exposition ; that is, excludes 
 every interpretation which restricts the efficacy 
 of baptism and absolution. For the positive ex- 
 position she refers us to the fathers and other 
 learned commentators. From these we may gather 
 as a general result sufficient for our purpose, that 
 the sin against the Holy Spirit is some kind of 
 peculiarly wilful and obstinate resistance and op- 
 position to the supernatural light and grace of the 
 Spirit of God. It is called irremissible, either 
 because it is devoid of any of those palliations 
 which are found in ordinary sins of human fragility, 
 and which, in a certain sense, appeal to the com- 
 passion of God, or because there is scarcely any 
 hope that one who commits it will ever repent of 
 it. And so in respect to the other passages cited. 
 They are satisfactorily explained if, on the one 
 hand, we understand them as alluding to the well- 
 known fact that no second regeneration, no repeti- 
 tion of baptism, is possible, and that no other 
 sacrament is equal to baptism as a sacrament of the 
 dead ; and, on the other, as renewing the same 
 
I4& The Way of Salvation. 
 
 statement which our Lord made concerning the 
 sin against the Holy Ghost. Those whose sins 
 proceed from a deliberate and contumacious spirit 
 of contempt of the grace of God are with difficulty 
 and but rarely brought to repentance, and they 
 commonly die in that final impenitence which is 
 the natural consequence of their total apostasy 
 from God. Nevertheless, they can, and sometimes, 
 by an extraordinary grace, they do, repent ; and if 
 they do, they can be absolved from their sins, what- 
 ever their number and enormity, and even at the 
 last moment of life. 
 
 This difficulty being disposed of, we return again 
 to our point of departure, which is that ample 
 means have been provided for the remission of sins 
 after baptism. Since it has pleased God to re- 
 generate the fallen child of Adam by a sacrament, 
 the analogy of reason and faith requires that there 
 should be another sacrament for his restoration, in 
 case he should fall from grace, as he is continually 
 liable to do through temptation and human fragil- 
 ity. The existence, nature, and conditions of this 
 sacrament are not distinctly and explicitly taught 
 in the inspired, apostolic writings, like those of 
 baptism. But when one already knows the insti- 
 tution and nature of the sacrament of penance, 
 certain things about it are seen to be clearly con- 
 tained in Hie Scripture, and other things to be 
 
The Way of Salvation. 149 
 
 obscurely involved in its statements, from which 
 they can be deduced by just and logical infer- 
 ence. 
 
 I am not about to prove the divine institution of 
 the sacrament of penance. I simply assert, as an 
 historical fact, that the Catholic Church from the 
 times of the apostles has testified to the unbroken 
 succession of priests from our Lord, who have re- 
 ceived from him power to absolve from all mortal 
 sins committed after baptism those who are peni- 
 tent and who confess their sins. Those who desire 
 to have the evidence of this historical fact are 
 referred to the books which contain it. Taking for 
 granted this fact, the sense of the famous passages 
 regarding the absolving power in the New Testa- 
 ment becomes obvious. The power of the priest 
 to absolve is seen to be clearly taught in them, and 
 the obligation of the penitent to confess is inferred 
 from the very nature of the act. 
 
 When the sacrament of extreme unction is known 
 to have been also administered in the Catholic 
 Church from the apostolic age, the sense of an 
 otherwise obscure passage in the Epistle of St. 
 James becomes perfectly clear, and furnishes a fair 
 Scriptural proof of both sacraments. " Is any sick 
 among you ? let him call for the elders of the 
 church ; and let them pray over him, anointing him 
 with oil in the name of the Lord : and the prayer 
 
150 The Way of Salvatioyi. 
 
 of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise 
 him up ; and if he have committed sins, they shall 
 be forgiven him. Confess your faults one to 
 another, and pray one for another, that ye may be 
 healed." * Elder, in this passage, is the same as 
 presbyter, and priest is only the ancient English 
 contracted form of presbyter. Therefore the 
 Douay translation, " let him bring in the priests of 
 the cliurch" besides being much more explicit and 
 in accordance with the language in use before the 
 schism of the sixteenth century, among all Chris- 
 tians, than that of King James, is equally literal. 
 Forgiveness of sins is ascribed to this sacrament in 
 the text. And the doctrine of the Catholic Church 
 makes the sense plain in this respect also. Venial 
 sins are remitted directly, the effects of mortal sin 
 are removed, and indirectly even mortal sins are 
 remitted, by the sacrament of extreme unction. 
 Confession is spoken of in such a way that if we 
 suppose Christians in the apostolic age to agree in 
 doctrine with the present Catholic Church, they 
 must have understood it as referring to the con- 
 fession of the sick man to the priest who came to 
 anoint him. King James's Version has " faults " 
 where the Douay has " sins," as the translation of 
 the Greek napaitroopiara, Vulgate peccata. This 
 translation, though verbally correct, veils the 
 *St. James v. 14-16. 
 
The Way of Salvation. 151 
 
 meaning, and induces the reader to think that the 
 passage refers to a mere acknowledgment of little 
 defects which may be made by friends in confi- 
 dential conversation. The Greek word is the same 
 used by St. Paul (Rom. v. 25) to denote the offences 
 for which Christ died. Those who can read Latin 
 will perceive in St. Jerome's version a much clearer 
 and more precise rendering of the original text than 
 our clumsy language can give, and will see how 
 evident the true sense must have been to his 
 mind, imbued with ancient and apostolic traditions : 
 " Infirmatur quis in vobis ? inducat presbyteros 
 ecclesise, et orent super eum, ungentes eum oleo 
 in nomine Domini ; et oratio fidei salvabit infirmum, 
 et alleviabit eum Dominus ; et si in peccatis sit, 
 remittentur ei. Confitemini ergo alterutrum peccata 
 vestra, et orate pro invicem, ut salvemini." 
 
 Thus far the provision made by our merciful 
 Lord for the remission of the sins of Christians, as 
 disclosed explicitly or implicitly in the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, according to the reading of the Catholic 
 Church, has been explained. The reader may de- 
 cide for himself if this doctrine is not in perfect har- 
 mony with those which have been previously ex- 
 posed, and if it does not make a clear, intelligible 
 sense of passages otherwise obscure and doubtful. 
 A second sacrament, a " second plank after ship- 
 wreck," affords the means of returning to the state 
 
152 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 of grace in which the Christian man was first plac- 
 ed by baptism, and from which he has fallen by 
 grievous sin, however numerous or enormous his 
 crimes may have been. A complement to this 
 sacrament has been provided in a third sacrament, 
 intended for those who are in danger of death ; 
 which either restores them to life or fortifies them 
 in the last struggle, as God sees to be most con- 
 ducive to their salvation : by taking away the 
 aggravation which sin lays upon bodily sickness 
 with its special dangers to the soul, and strengthen- 
 ing the infirmity of nature which springs from the 
 effects of sin. 
 
 There is another part of the Catholic doctrine 
 respecting sin after baptism, however, which re- 
 quires a brief elucidation. The church teaches, 
 namely, that the sacrament of penance has not 
 the same plenary efficacy for taking away sin 
 and guilt from the penitent which baptism pos- 
 sesses. The penitent is not restored to the same 
 degree of favor with God by sacramental absolu- 
 tion which he before enjoyed, nor is the penalty 
 due to him fully remitted. Wherefore he must 
 satisfy the justice of God ; and if he passes out 
 of this life with any debt to the divine justice 
 resting upon him, he must remain in prison until 
 that debt has been expiated by penal suffering. 
 Closely connected with this is the doctrine that 
 
The Way of Salvation. 153 
 
 the same temporal punishment is also due to venial 
 sins. I do not intend to dwell upon this point 
 here. I will merely take a brief notice of the 
 principal passages of the New Testament which 
 sustain and confirm the Catholic doctrine of a 
 purgatory after death, in which the soul is puri- 
 fied from the stains of sin which are found in it 
 when it leaves the body in the state of grace, yet 
 not entirely free from guilt. 
 
 The passage respecting the sin against the Holy 
 Spirit cited above implies that some sins are re- 
 mitted in the world to come, else the declaration 
 made by our Lord, that this particular sin shall not 
 be forgiven, " neither in this world, neither in the 
 world to come," has no meaning. If a Catholic 
 preacher should say : " There are men for whom, 
 without a miracle of divine grace, there is no bap- 
 tism, no penance, no purgatory, and thus no hope 
 of salvation — such is their violent and obstinate 
 hatred of the truth revealed by the Holy Spirit — but 
 only eternal damnation, as the just punishment of 
 final perseverance in sin "; such language would be 
 perfectly in keeping with the known doctrine of the 
 preacher and of the Catholic people to whom he 
 was speaking. Other' sinners, however grievously 
 they have sinned, and however long they have put 
 off repentance, may be, perhaps, baptized at the 
 very hour of death, and go at once to heaven, as we 
 
154 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 frequently find to be the case. Or if they have 
 been baptized, and can no more be washed in the 
 laver of regeneration, they may be absolved, and in 
 purgatory they may make satisfaction to God for 
 the transgressions of their lives, so that eventually, 
 being entirely purified from sin, they may enter 
 heaven. The remission of sin in this world and in 
 the world to come, in which the prayers for the 
 dead and other works in aid of the faithful de- 
 parted have a large share, is a familiar idea to a 
 Catholic. And to be shut out even from purgatory, 
 to be deprived of all aid from the prayers of the 
 living after death, is the strongest expression to his 
 mind of the hopelessness of an eternal doom. 
 
 There is another and a most remarkable passage 
 in one of the Epistles to the Corinthians, in which, 
 in figurative style, the apostle sets forth in a very 
 terse and vivid manner the whole doctrine which I 
 have just now stated in brief terms. " Other foun- 
 dation can no man lay than that is laid, which is 
 Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this 
 foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, 
 stubble ; every man's work shall be made manifest : 
 for the day shall declare it, because it shall be re- 
 vealed by fire ; and the fire shall try every man's 
 work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide 
 which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a 
 reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he 
 
The Way of Salvation, 155 
 
 shall suffer loss : but he himself shall be saved ; yet 
 so as by fire T * 
 
 Once more, St. Peter affirms that Christ " went 
 and preached unto the spirits in prison ; which some- 
 time were disobedient, when once the long-suffering 
 of God waited in the days of Noe. . . . For 
 for this cause was the gospel preached also to them 
 that are dead, that they might be judged according 
 to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the 
 spirit." f 
 
 This may suffice for the present, as a view of what 
 Scripture teaches respecting the remission of sins 
 after baptism. Its statements and allusions are 
 more rare and indistinct on this topic than on those 
 whose consideration has preceded. It may be ac- 
 counted for in this way. The faithful to whom the 
 epistles were addressed were recently baptized, and 
 the catechumens or hearers to whom these epistles 
 might be read, or who might hear the apostles preach, 
 were unbaptized. In their first fervor and devotion 
 the faithful had little need to be instructed respect- 
 ing the sacrament of penance, and the rest had no- 
 thing to do with this sacrament at all. After bap- 
 tism and confirmation, the most important sacra- 
 ment to those early Christians was the* Holy Commu- 
 nion. They were in the habit of attending at the 
 
 * 1 Cor. iii. 11-15. f 1 Peter iii. 19, 20; iv. 6. 
 
156 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 divine oblation every morning, and of receiving the 
 sacrament daily or weekly. Therefore, as was quite 
 natural, the apostles spoke more frequently and ex- 
 plicitly about the Holy Communion than about 
 any other sacrament, baptism alone excepted. 
 
 Let us recall the principles already established, 
 in order to make the connection and end of our dis- 
 course more obvious. We are endeavoring to trace 
 out the way of salvation as laid down in the New 
 Testament. I have already proved that the sinner 
 disposed by faith and repentance is placed in the 
 state of grace and salvation through the sacrament 
 of baptism ; that he is made just and holy by a 
 real and inherent sanctity ; that he is to keep and 
 increase this sanctity, and reduce it to act in his life, 
 by keeping the commandments of God, which are 
 prescribed to him as the condition of the favor of 
 God and eternal life. I have also proved that the 
 sacramental principle contained in the institution of 
 baptism as the gate of entrance to eternal life must 
 run through the whole order of grace, and manifest 
 itself in other sacraments, in which the Christian 
 may find the graces necessary for the full comple- 
 tion of that regenerate nature which is imparted in 
 baptism. The regenerate man, being obliged to 
 live a life wholly supernatural, to perform works 
 above the powers of human nature, to overcome 
 many and great temptations, to endure many trials, 
 
The Way of Salvation. 157 
 
 to work out his salvation in fear and trembling, and 
 all this in a frail and corruptible body which is a 
 heavy weight on the soul, needs some heavenly ali- 
 ment to sustain him. He needs a perpetual source 
 of sacramental grace, from which he can derive sus- 
 tenance, vigor, healing virtue, and divine consola- 
 tion, that he may grow and thrive, and be strength- 
 ened to avoid sin, to do good works, and to win 
 eternal life. This sacrament has been provided in 
 the Holy Eucharist, as the inspired scriptures of the 
 New Testament most plainly teach. 
 
 Our Lord himself, as we are informed by his 
 beloved apostle St. John in the sixth chapter of his 
 gospel, taught the disciples that they were to live 
 by a continual communication of virtue from his 
 own sacred humanity : " I am the living bread 
 which came down from heaven : if any man eat 
 of this bread, he shall live for ever. . . . Verily, 
 verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of 
 the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no 
 life in you. . . . He that eateth my flesh, and 
 drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. 
 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by 
 the Father : so he that eateth me, even he shall 
 live by me." * At the last supper, when he had 
 instituted and consecrated the Holy Eucharist, he 
 gave holy communion to the apostles, saying : 
 
 * St. John vi. 51, et scq. 
 
158 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 " This is my body which is given for you. . . . 
 This cup is the new testament in my blood, which 
 is shed for you." * And St. Paul writes to the 
 Corinthians : " The cup of blessing which we bless, 
 is it not the communion of the blood of Christ ? 
 The bread which Ave break, is it not the com- 
 munion of the body of Christ ? " Precisely because 
 this food and drink is the sustenance and aliment 
 of the life of the soul when it is received worthily, 
 he ascribes to its unworthy reception the fact which 
 he deplores, that " many are weak and sickly among 
 you, and many sleep." f The perfect clearness and 
 explicitness of these and similar statements make 
 all comment and elaborate exposition unnecessary. 
 It is not my object to prove the real presence, 
 transubstantiation, or the sacrifice of the Mass. 
 It is enough to show that the grace proceeding 
 from the Mediator, Jesus Christ, for sustaining and 
 invigorating the regenerate nature which he imparts 
 in baptism, is conveyed through the sacrament of 
 the Holy Eucharist. The express and full elucida- 
 tion of the nature and effects of this sacrament can 
 be found in the many excellent treatises which have 
 been published on this special topic. 
 
 Nor is it necessary to speak particularly of the 
 remaining sacraments which have not been noticed, 
 to wit, Holy Order and Matrimony. The first of 
 * St. Luke xxii. 19, 20. \ 1 Cor. x. 16, xi. 30. 
 
The Way of Salvation. 159 
 
 these is intended for the consecration and sanctifi- 
 cation of those who are set apart to the sacred min- 
 istry of the word and sacraments and the govern- 
 ment of the church. The second is for the sancti- 
 fication of the conjugal and parental state in respect 
 to the supernatural end of the family in the order 
 of grace and salvation. It is, moreover, equally 
 superfluous to prove the efficacy of prayer as a most 
 certain means of grace and perseverance, since those 
 who may be supposed to read these pages are 
 already fully convinced of this truth, and well in- 
 structed in regard to the same. 
 
 I have shown what I proposed and promised to 
 show at the outset : that salvation is provided for 
 all men in Jesus Christ ; that faith and repentance 
 are the conditions for being placed in the state and 
 in the way of salvation ; that the instrument of 
 regeneration is baptism ; that salvation is actually 
 attained by obedience to the law of Christ ; and 
 that special means are provided by which a Chris- 
 tian is strengthened and efficaciously aided to fulfil 
 this obedience, to obtain pardon when he trans- 
 gresses, and to attain the perfect and spotless 
 sanctity which will entitle and fit him to enter the 
 celestial kingdom. It is evident, therefore, that 
 the whole work of salvation is comprised essentially 
 in the fulfilment of the following conditions : to 
 repent, to believe, to be baptized, to keep the com- 
 
160 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 mandments, to do penance if one has sinned, to 
 receive worthily the sacraments, especially the 
 Holy Eucharist, to undergo purgation after death, 
 if one is not free from all guilt and stain: These 
 conditions are not all necessary for all persons. 
 That which is alone subjectively necessary and in- 
 dispensable to the salvation of a soul is the absence 
 of original and actual sin, and the presence of sanc- 
 tifying grace. Therefore the only condition re- 
 quisite for the salvation of an infant is that it be. 
 regenerated. The baptized child who attains the 
 use of reason has no need of the conditions required 
 of an adult person as the predisposition for bap- 
 tism. If he commits no mortal sin, he has no need 
 of repentance and penance in the strict sense of the 
 words. If he is free from every stain at the hour 
 of death, he has no need of purgatory. For the in- 
 fant, sanctifying grace ; for the adult, in addition to 
 habitual grace, an actual faith informed by love and 
 producing the fruit of good works, is therefore the 
 inherent quality which justifies, and, when perfect, 
 justifies completely. But that this indispensable 
 condition may be verified in particular persons, ac- 
 cording to their state and circumstances, the other 
 conditions specified, in so far as they are possible 
 and requisite, must be fulfilled. Therefore I have 
 called them essential conditions, because they are 
 all the conditions which constitute the essence of 
 
The Way of Salvation, 161 
 
 the way of salvation as a provision for all men under 
 all varieties of state and circumstances. If these 
 are all the conditions, they are the only conditions, 
 and there can be no other conditions separate in 
 their nature from these, or not in some way in- 
 cluded or implied in them, or following necessarily 
 from them. Nevertheless, this is not the complete 
 account of the matter, but there still remains some- 
 thing which is, as it were, the substratum of these 
 conditions, and necessary to their existence and 
 fulfilment. This is the one, true church established 
 by Jesus Christ, in which his faith, his law, his sac- 
 raments, have their subsistence, and in which alone 
 the individual Christian can comply with the condi- 
 tions requisite for his salvation. 
 
 In the order of nature it is only necessary for the 
 individual life, health, and perfection of each sepa- 
 rate human being that he should be born, possess 
 the means of sustenance, growth, health, activity, 
 in his animal and rational nature, observe the natural 
 laws, and direct his actions to the end prefixed by his 
 Creator. But these are all impossible for him, ex- 
 cept as a member of the human species, as a unit in 
 a multitude of similar beings, having the same ori- 
 gin and bound together in a society by common 
 laws. The unity and organic principles of the hu- 
 man race are the substratum of the life and well- 
 being of each individual. It is the same in the order 
 
1 62 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 of grace. The church is the regenerated human 
 species under its head, Jesus Christ, the second 
 Adam ; the divine society of true believers and sub- 
 jects of the Redeemer of mankind ; and it is only 
 as a member of this society that the individual 
 Christian is constituted in his supernatural person- 
 ality with the rights and privileges of a Christian, 
 and the ability to work out his own salvation by his 
 own free acts concurring with the grace of God. 
 This is one of the most important topics I have to 
 treat of; in fact, the one which includes and involves 
 all the rest. I shall therefore devote all the remain- 
 ing part of this treatise to its thorough and ample 
 explication. 
 
CHAPTER FIFTH. 
 
 Of the Church— Its Unity and Authority— Of the Rule of Faith 
 — The Mystics — Luther's Doctrine of Private Illumination — Of 
 Teaching Authority in General — Of Infallibility — Various The- 
 ories Examined and Tested — The Validity of the Argument 
 from Scripture Established — Indirect, Negative, Cumulative, and 
 Presumptive Proofs that the Catholic Church alone is the True 
 Church. 
 
 THE proposition which I intend to prove, and 
 to prove fundamentally and principally from 
 the Holy Scripture, is, that God has established, as 
 the necessary means of the salvation of the human 
 race, a society which in its nature is one and uni- 
 versal — that is, a catholic church ; and that it is in 
 itself necessary, and both as a consequence from this 
 necessity, and by a positive divine precept, strictly 
 and indispensably obligatory on each individual to 
 be a member of this church, in order to his salva- 
 tion. This is a proposition which those Protestants 
 who are called orthodox cannot deny to be true in 
 a general sense. But I intend to prove that it is 
 not only true in this sense, but also in the strict, 
 proper, and specifically Catholic sense ; and by 
 means of it to identify the one, true church estab*. 
 
 x6. 
 
164 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 lished by Jesus Christ, into which every man is 
 bound to enter in order to attain salvation. 
 
 This supernatural society, one and universal in 
 its essence, was instituted at the same time that the 
 human race was created. Adam and Eve were 
 bound together by a supernatural as well as a natu- 
 ral bond which made them one in the Son of God, 
 by the grace of a divine filiation to the Father, in 
 the Holy Spirit. The entire human race existed in 
 them, not actually, but potentially, as the parents 
 and heads of all mankind, not only in respect 
 to the order of generation and natural life, but also 
 of regeneration and supernatural life. According 
 to the primitive order of original justice, human so- 
 ciety would have been a spiritual, a political, and a 
 social organization all in one ; the church, the state, 
 the family, being distinct, but not separate, with 
 one religion, one law, one language, and perpetual 
 peace uniting all mankind in one common family 
 whose father was God. This order was broken up 
 by the sin of our first parents, who forfeited the 
 right of transmitting regeneration to their posterity, 
 together with the forfeiture of their own personal 
 rights as children of God. This order being, how- 
 ever, restored in Christ, the second Adam, the re- 
 generate and spiritual society of men under his 
 headship must necessarily have been restored. 
 Moreover, as his work was one both of rebuilding a 
 
The Way of Salvation, 165 
 
 ruined world, and of perpetual warfare against a hos- 
 tile power and kingdom which had gained a footing 
 on the earth, it was necessary that the organiza- 
 tion, laws, and whole exterior discipline of this 
 society should receive a higher degree of unity, 
 strength, and force than that which was possessed 
 by the original society. And as it was developed, 
 extended, and engaged in more vast works and a 
 more arduous warfare in the progress of ages and 
 the continued evolution of the destinies of man 
 toward their consummation, it would require an in- 
 creasing consolidation, a more compact unity and 
 force, an augmentation both of its power of resist- 
 ance and its power of aggression. So long as the 
 human race was restricted within the bounds of one 
 family, the church was not distinct from the family ; 
 and so long as human society was composed of an 
 aggregation of closely-related families under a patri- 
 archal organization, the church was identical with 
 this patriarchal state, until the apostasy of a large 
 part of mankind from the true religion or bond of 
 unity broke up the first state of society and 
 brought on the Deluge. This same patriarchal or- 
 der was renewed in the family of Noah, but very 
 soon gave place to the breaking-up of the human 
 race into separate tribes and nations. Unity of 
 language, of religion, of laws, of sentiments, and of 
 ends was lost amonsr mankind as a universal soci- 
 
1 66 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 ety, and henceforth was restricted within the sphere 
 of one nation, until the time of the advent of the 
 Redeemer. The calling of Abraham inaugurated 
 the new dispensation of Israel, and the divine lega- 
 tion of Moses, the forerunner and type of Christ, 
 gave it an organic law. All this was only prefa- 
 tory to the foundation of the Catholic Church by 
 Jesus Christ, the Redeemer and Restorer of mankind. 
 The end of the redemption wrought out by Jesus 
 Christ is the restoration of the human race to the 
 unity of the supernatural order in God. The means 
 by which this restoration is effected is the church, 
 the last and most highly-organized institution which 
 God has established for the consummation of the 
 final end for which he has created the world. It 
 must therefore contain within itself all those princi- 
 ples and forces which produce unification in the 
 most perfect manner, both intensively and exten- 
 sively, and its operation must consequently exhibit 
 both the intensity and the extension of these forces 
 in a manifest and visible unity of the highest de- 
 gree and the most universal dominion. 
 
 In order to understand this fully it is necessary 
 to premise some explanation of the nature of unity 
 in general, and of the unity of the supernatural 
 order in particular. Unity is defined by St. Thomas 
 to be undivided being, to which, in respect to other 
 beings, must be added, which is divided from all 
 
The Way of Salvation* \6j 
 
 others. The most perfect unity is that of a simple 
 essence, which is undivided and indivisible. The 
 highest kind of indivisibility belongs to that essence 
 which is the. most absolutely simple or free from all 
 composition whatever, which is the invisible and 
 ineffable essence of God. In him alone, therefore, 
 is absolute, essential unity, and in the world of cre- 
 ated beings, the highest kind of unity is found only 
 in spirits, whose nature is not divisible into parts, 
 but is simple substance. Unity in plurality exists 
 absolutely and perfectly only in God, who is One 
 Essence in Three Persons. In this Trinity of Persons 
 there is no real distinction between the Essence and 
 the Persons, for the Infinite Being whom, we call by 
 the name of God is the Three Persons, Father, Son, 
 and Holy Ghost ; wherefore these three names de- 
 note, not a distinction of essence, but only of person- 
 ality — a mystery which is entirely above our reason. 
 Next in order to this perfect unity of essence in a 
 plurality of persons is the unity of person in a du- 
 ality of natures, or what is called the hypostatic 
 union of the human with the divine nature in the 
 person of our Lord Jesus Christ. In pure creatures 
 the highest and most perfect union with God to 
 which they can be raised is one which leaves them 
 not only in their own distinct nature, but also in 
 their distinct personality. Each one of these ele- 
 vated creatures is a being in himself, with his own 
 
1 68 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 complete unity by which he is undivided in his own 
 subsistence, and divided from all others ; that is to 
 say, exists as a separate individual. His union with 
 God is a participation in a limited degree in that 
 light and love which are the life of God, communi- 
 cated to him by the Divine Spirit. The common 
 participation of this life by a multitude of distinct 
 persons constitutes their mutual union with each 
 other in one society ; that is, they are united to- 
 gether by a common beatific knowledge and love of 
 God, necessarily producing a perfect love toward 
 one another. This society is what is called the 
 church triumphant, whose members are the blessed 
 angels and men who are in heaven, and whose Head 
 is Jesus Christ, in whom all are one in God. 
 
 Those who are on the way to this beatific union 
 must necessarily partake in it in a manner suited to 
 the prefatory state in which they are. They must 
 be united with God through Jesus Christ,- and unit- 
 ed with all those who are thus united with God, by 
 some participation of the divine light and love, 
 which is the beginning of that which is made per- 
 fect in the celestial beatitude. This incipient beati- 
 tude and inchoate principle of union with God is 
 that faith which is informed by love. God and the 
 Saints in heaven are one in the beatific vision. This 
 is essentially a spiritual and intellectual union, hav- 
 ing its seat in the purely spiritual essence of God, 
 
The Way of Salvation, 169 
 
 and in the highest, most spiritual, most simple ele- 
 ment of the rational nature of the beatified man or 
 angel. The same principle of unity and order, 
 however, extends itself throughout every part of 
 the universe, and binds all together in one whole. 
 This order and harmony is subordinate to the glori- 
 fication and beatification of the saints, and ministers 
 to its completion. In a like manner the kingdom 
 of God on earth is, in the highest part of its essence, 
 spiritual ; and its inward, organic principle is a spir- 
 itual bond which binds together the children of God 
 on earth in a spiritual union, which is the beginning 
 of the perfect union of heaven. All external means, 
 all institutions, all organization, in the visible and 
 sensible order, are conditions, means, effects, or in 
 some way subordinate parts of this unity, the soul 
 of which is the grace of the Holy Spirit, and whose 
 vital movements are faith, hope, and charity. This 
 entire, composite whole constitutes the church mili- 
 tant on earth, the society of the faithful which is 
 one and universal, or a universal unity. 
 
 The explanations already made of the nature of 
 unity are sufficient to make it clearly intelligible 
 that this universal unity is something different from 
 the unity of a single individual ; that it exists with- 
 out any prejudice to the separate individual exist- 
 ence of the parts composing it ; and that it has a 
 true objective reality, not one which is merely in 
 
1 70 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 name or in the conception of the mind. The 
 foundation of it has been pointed out in the unity 
 in plurality which exists in the Being of God, who 
 is one in Three Persons. The universal unity 
 which unites the whole multitude of distinct, sepa- 
 rate individuals who compose the supernatural so- 
 ciety into one church, triumphant, suffering, and 
 militant, is an imitation of the uni.ty in Trinity, and 
 of the hypostatic union of two natures in the One 
 Person of Jesus Christ. The name universal \ ex- 
 plained according to its etymology, expresses the 
 whole notion of all the universals, and of the uni- 
 versal church specifically. It is unum versus alia — 
 that which is one in respect to divers things. It 
 denotes that unity which has an aptitude or capa- 
 bility of existing in many things. For instance, let 
 us take the essence of finite spiritual being. It con- 
 sists in intelligence, and exists by the creative act 
 of God in all created spirits, however numerous 
 they may be. It is their common nature, by virtue 
 of which they are capable of society with each other, 
 through a mutual communication and concurrence 
 of thought and of consequent volition, and are sepa- 
 rated from any similar society with any inferior 
 natures by an impassable chasm. In pure spirits 
 the power and act of intelligence are determined to 
 a specific nature and operation which is simply and 
 exclusively intellectual. As purely intellectual be- 
 
The Way of Salvation. 171 
 
 ings, the angels are therefore by their nature capa-' 
 ble of a more perfect society with one another than 
 with any intelligent nature of an inferior order. In 
 the human species intelligent spirit exists in the 
 form of a soul which is rational in distinction from 
 the purely intellectual nature of the angel, and de- 
 termined by its specific essence to be the form — that 
 is, the vital principle — of a body. Man is a rational 
 animal ; and, as such, he is by nature capable of a 
 more perfect society with those of his own species 
 than with those of any other. The essence of hu- 
 manity is composed of two constituent parts, ani- 
 mality and rationality. This specific essence is a 
 universal ; it is a one, which has an aptitude to exist 
 in many, and can be multiplied in an indefinite 
 number of separate individuals. When it is pro- 
 duced into actual being, the composition of the 
 essence with existence makes the individual man. 
 All individual men, therefore, bear a perfect simili- 
 tude to each other in respect to all that which con- 
 stitutes them human beings, so that there lies in 
 their very nature an aptitude for society with each 
 other, and an inclination to this society or to com- 
 mon social occupations and enjoyments. But this 
 is not the only bond of unity and brotherhood 
 among men. ' The unity of the species, which in- 
 cludes the generic reason making man an animal, 
 with the specific reason which makes him rational, 
 
172 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 is a unity which not only gives to all men a simili- 
 tude of nature, but also a common origin and a 
 blood-relationship. Man belongs to that order of 
 beings which are multiplied by generation. And 
 whatever may be the case with inferior species of 
 animals or with plants, it is certainly a revealed 
 fact, supported by all the scientific evidence accessi- 
 ble to us, that all men are descended from one pair 
 of parents. There is, therefore, a natural society, 
 constituted by the very creation of the first man and 
 the first woman, from which the whole human race 
 derives its existence, and of which each man is 
 necessarily by his birth made a member for life. 
 The family, the primordial social unit, is a necessary 
 condition of human existence and welfare. It is 
 not needful to show the natural and necessary de- 
 velopment of the family into the more extensive 
 societies in which men have always been associated 
 together. Enough has been said to prove that men 
 cannot exist or attain any natural and rational end 
 of their existence in a state of mere individuality 
 and singularity. As an intelligent creature each 
 man is necessarily a partaker in that common, spiri- 
 tual nature which makes one order in the universe, 
 to which all intelligent creatures belong. As one 
 of the lowest grade in this order, that of rational 
 animals, he is necessarily a partaker in the common 
 nature of humanity, and one individual of a species 
 
The Way of Salvation. 173 
 
 derived by generation from its first progenitors. As 
 a child he is one of a family which, if lawfully con- 
 stituted, originates in a stable and permanent union 
 of his parents in marriage. In his other relations 
 he is one among many bound together in society by 
 various common ends and common laws. 
 
 In the order of regeneration, or the supernatural 
 order, the same principles which lie at the base of 
 the natural order under which the intelligent crea- 
 tion is constituted are elevated to a higher plane, 
 but remain substantially the same. The unity of 
 the essence of intelligent beings is the reason of 
 their capacity to be elevated to a higher common 
 plane in the supernatural order, and to share to- 
 gether in a common beatitude in the vision of God. 
 In this higher order the intellectual and rational 
 natures are also brought nearer together and united 
 in a more perfect society with each other. The hu- 
 man nature, in the Person of the Eternal Word, is 
 elevated above the angelic by virtue of the hypo- 
 static union. In the persons of glorified men it is 
 made, by adoption, equal to the angelic. Angels 
 and men form one perfect society or kingdom of 
 heaven by their subjection to one Sovereign, Jesus 
 Christ, by their filiation to One Father, God, by 
 their communication in one intellectual act, the vision 
 of the Divine Essence in Three Persons, by the pos- 
 session of one supreme good, by unity of will, by 
 
174 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 perpetual and perfect mutual love, by being made, 
 each and every one, a part of a grand, symmetrical 
 whole, a single masterpiece of divine art in a grand 
 gallery of celestial, spiritual beauty, to the praise 
 and glory of the infinite Creator, who is their arche- 
 type. The supernatural being which is given them, 
 whose last complement is the light of glory by 
 which they are made capable of receiving the bea- 
 tific intuition of God, although not a new essence, 
 is nevertheless a new determination of the intelli- 
 gent power to an act infinitely above its nature. It 
 is sanctifying grace which is the elevating principle, 
 or rather, which contains within itself the elevating 
 principle, and constitutes the new quality of the 
 ennobled nature. Sanctifying grace effects the ac- 
 tual union of the elevated nature with God in the 
 Person of the Word, by a kind of participation of 
 the hypostatic union of created with uncreated be- 
 ing in Jesus Christ, who is God and man. We may 
 call it, therefore, in a certain way, the differentia of 
 a new, supernatural species, which includes under 
 itself all the genera and species of intelligent crea- 
 tures which are known to us — that is, all angels and 
 men, in so far as these are raised to a supernatural 
 state. As all angels are made angels by participat- 
 ing in the angelic, intellectual nature, and all men 
 are made men by participating in human nature, so 
 all the sons of God are made sons of God by par- 
 
The Way of Salvation. 175 
 
 ticipating in sanctifying grace. The elevated or 
 regenerate nature is a universal, or a one which 
 has aptitude to exist in many spiritual genera, 
 species, and individuals. Those who have it in its 
 proper actuality as sanctifying grace, and only those, 
 whether they are in heaven, in purgatory, or on the 
 earth, constitute that spiritual society in union with 
 God which is called, in the highest sense of that 
 word, the church of Jesus Christ; and of these, only 
 such as actually attain the state of glory constitute 
 the perfect and everlasting church, or kingdom of 
 heaven. There is, however, a temporary union with 
 the church, and also one which is partial and imper- 
 fect, during the period of its formation ; so that in 
 its more extensive sense the church is a society in- 
 cluding many members who become finally repro- 
 bates, and many who are not in the state of grace. 
 The union of the beatified with God is perfect and 
 indissoluble. The union of the unbeatified, who 
 are in the inchoate order of grace which is a medi- 
 um between the state of nature and the state of 
 supernatural glory, is imperfect, and in its nature 
 dissoluble. It has, moreover, its grades of relative 
 perfection, and its own particular conditions, suited 
 to an inchoate and intermediate order. Its essence 
 is therefore modified, and various accidents are 
 added to it, qualifying its state and condition as it 
 actually exists and operates during the state of pro- 
 
176 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 bation on the earth. The church, as one and uni- 
 versal, in respect to that collection of individuals 
 who are its members on the earth, must, therefore, 
 possess in addition to its essential and eternal prin- 
 ciple of unity, another which is inherent in it, 
 and which is the principle of an accidental and 
 temporary unity. The church universal on the 
 earth has in its very nature the oneness per 
 se, which has been already explained, in which 
 each individual participates, and which has its 
 living, active operation in faith, hope, and cha- 
 rity. It has also a oneness per accidens, which 
 consists in an exterior, visible organization and 
 order, containing all the means and institutions, 
 all the instruments and laws — in a word, all the 
 complex arrangement of second causes which is 
 necessary to produce, extend, increase, and perpet- 
 uate, through the power communicated and con- 
 curring of the Spirit of God, the regeneration of 
 men and their union with God by faith, hope, and 
 charity. This unity is not called per accidens be- 
 cause it is something fortuitous or unnecessary. % It 
 is not the accidental unity of a mere heap of stones, 
 which is only a unity of aggregation, but a unity of 
 order, "which consists in this: that a number of 
 distinct parts are bound together by an intelligent 
 cause according to a fixed plan, in such a manner 
 that in their connection they form an organic 
 
The Way of Salvation, 177 
 
 whole."* The unity of a building, of a university, 
 of an army, is a unity of this kind. It is called per 
 acczdens, because the union of parts is produced by 
 an extrinsic, and not an intrinsic, cause. This par- 
 ticular accidental unity of the church of which 
 I am speaking is also accidental in respect to 
 its essential being, inasmuch as it is something 
 which accedes to it, or is superadded, in order 
 that it may exercise its proper operation with per- 
 fection. 
 
 Thus far I have been reasoning from principles 
 derived partly from reason and partly from revelation, 
 without adducing direct proofs from the Scripture. 
 But in great part I have stated what is admitted as 
 true by standard Protestant authors, and specifically 
 by Calvinists, and I have been only preparing the way 
 for a right understanding of my proposition respect- 
 ing the church, and of the proofs which I intend to 
 bring forward. But before I proceed with the main 
 argument, I will first cite a few of the passages of 
 Holy Scripture in which are contained the several 
 principal doctrinal statements which I have made as 
 preliminary to the doctrine of the divine constitu- 
 tion of the catholic church militant. 
 
 " Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time 
 with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip ? 
 he that hath seen me hath seen the Father. . . . 
 * Stockl, " Lehrb.der Phil. Ontol.," sec. 97. 
 
178 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the 
 Father in me ? . . . And I will pray the Father, 
 and he shall give you another Comforter, that he 
 may abide with you for ever ; the Spirit of truth ; 
 . . . for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in 
 you. . . . And this is life eternal, that they 
 might know thee the only true God.* . . 
 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also 
 which shall believe on me through their word ; that 
 they all may be one ; as thou, Father, art in me, and 
 I in thee, that they also may be one in us. . . . 
 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given 
 them ; that they may be one, even as we are one : I 
 in them, and thou in me, that they may be made 
 perfect in one. . . . Father, I will that they 
 also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where 
 I am ; that they may behold my glory, which thou 
 hast given me : for thou lovedst me before the foun- 
 dation of the world." f 
 
 " For through him we both have access by one 
 Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye are no 
 more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens 
 with the saints, and of the household of God ; and 
 are built upon the foundation of the apostles and 
 prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cor- 
 ner-stone ; in whom all the building fitly framed to- 
 gether groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord : in 
 
 # St. John xiv. 9, 10, 16, 17 ; xvii. 3. f Ibid. xvii. 20-24. 
 
The Way of Salvation. 179 
 
 whom ye also are builded together for a habitation 
 of God through the Spirit. . . . The fellowship 
 of the mystery, which from the beginning of the 
 world hath been hid in God, who created all things 
 by Jesus Christ : to the intent that now unto the 
 principalities and powers in heavenly places might 
 be known by the church the manifold wisdom of 
 God. . . . For this cause I bow my knees unto 
 the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the 
 whole family in heaven and earth is named. . . . 
 Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus 
 throughout all ages, world without end. . . . 
 I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you 
 that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye 
 are called, ... endeavoring to keep the unity 
 of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one 
 body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one 
 hope of your calling ; one Lord, one faith, one bap- 
 tism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, 
 and through all, and in you all. But unto every one 
 of us is given grace according to the measure of the 
 gift of Christ. . . . For the perfecting of the 
 saints, for the .work of the ministry, for the edifying 
 of the body of Christ : till we all come in the unity 
 of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of 
 God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the 
 stature of the fulness of Christ." * 
 
 * Ephesians ii. 18-22 ; iii. 9-11, 14, 15, 21 ; iv. 1, 3-7, 12, 13. 
 
i8o The Way of Salvation. 
 
 " God, who at sundry times and in divers man- 
 ners spake in time past unto the fathers by the 
 prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by 
 his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, 
 by whom also he made the worlds ; who being the 
 brightness of his glory, and the express image of 
 his person, and upholding all things by the word of 
 his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, 
 sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high ; 
 being made so much better than the angels, as he 
 hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name 
 than they. . . . Are they not all ministering 
 spirits, sent forth to minister to them who shall be 
 heirs of salvation ? . . . For unto the angels hath 
 he not put in subjection the world to come, where- 
 of we speak. But one in a certain place testified, 
 saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him ? 
 or the son of man, that thou visitest him ? Thou 
 madest him a little lower than the angels ; thou 
 crownedst him with glory and honor, and didst set 
 him over the works of thy hands ; thou hast put 
 all things in subjection under his feet. . . . But 
 now we see not yet all things put under him. But 
 we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the 
 angels for the suffering of death, crowned with 
 glory and honor.'' * 
 
 " Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath 
 * Hebrews c.c. i., ii. 
 
The Way of Salvation. 181 
 
 made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of 
 the saints in light ; who hath delivered us from the 
 power of darkness, and hath translated us into the 
 kingdom of his dear Son : . . . who is the im- 
 age of the invisible God, the first-born of every 
 creature : for by him were all things created, that 
 are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and in- 
 visible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or 
 principalities, or powers : all things were created by 
 him, and for him : and he is before all things, and by 
 him all things consist. And he is the head of the 
 body, the church : who is the beginning, the first- 
 born from the dead : that in all things he might 
 have the pre-eminence. For it pleased the Father 
 that in him should all fulness dwell ; and, having 
 made peace through the blood of his cross, by him 
 to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, 
 whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. 
 . . . And ye are complete in him, which is the 
 head of all principality and power: . . buried 
 with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with 
 him. . . . If ye then be risen with Christ, 
 . . . your life is hid with Christ in God. When 
 Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also 
 appear with him in glory. . . . Ye have put 
 off the old man with his deeds; and have put on 
 the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after 
 the image of him that created him. . . . Put 
 
1 82 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 on therefore, as the elect of God, . . . charity 
 which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace 
 of God rale in your hearts, to the which also ye are 
 called in one body." * 
 
 " Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same 
 Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, 
 but the same Lord. And there are diversities of 
 operations, but it is the same God which worketh 
 all in all. . . . But all these worketh that one 
 and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man sev- 
 erally as he will. For as the body is one, and hath 
 many members, and all the members of that one 
 body, being many, are one body : so also is Christ. 
 For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, 
 . . . and have been made to drink into one 
 spirit. . . . And yet shew I unto you a more 
 excellent way. . . . Charity never faileth : but 
 whether there be prophecies they shall fail ; 
 whether there be tongues, they shall cease ; whether 
 there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we 
 know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when 
 that which is perfect is come, then, that which is 
 in part shall be done away. . . . For now we 
 see through a glass, darkly ; but then face to face : 
 now I know in part ; but then shall I know even as 
 also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, 
 charity, these three ; but the greatest of these is 
 *Coloss. i. 12-20 ; ii. 10, 12 ; iii, 1-4, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15. 
 
The Way of Salvation. 183 
 
 charity. . . . For as in Adam all die, even so 
 in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in 
 his own order : Christ the first-fruits ; afterward they 
 that are Christ's at his coming. Then cometh the 
 end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom 
 to God, even the Father ; when he shall have put 
 down all rule and all authority and power. For he 
 must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his 
 feet. . . . And when all things shall be sub- 
 dued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be 
 subject unto him that put all things under him, that 
 God may be all in all." * 
 
 " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual 
 blessings in heavenly places in Christ, . . . hav- 
 ing made known unto us the mystery of his will, 
 . . . that in the fulness of times he might gather 
 together in one all things in Christ, both which are 
 in heaven, and which are on earth; . . . accord- 
 ing to the working of his mighty power, which he 
 wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the 
 dead, and set him at his own right hand in the 
 heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, 
 and might, and dominion, and every name that is 
 named, not only in this world, but also in that 
 which is to come : and hath put all things under his 
 feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to 
 
 * 1 Cor. xii. 4-13, 31 ; xiii. 8-13 ; xv. 22-28. 
 
184 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 the church, which is his body, the fulness of him 
 that filleth all iff all."* 
 
 " For ye are not come unto the mount that might 
 be touched. . . . But ye are come unto Mount 
 Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the hea- 
 venly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company 
 of angels, to the general assembly and church of 
 the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to 
 God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men 
 made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new 
 covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speak- 
 
 eth better things than the blood of Abel 
 
 Whose voice then shook the earth : but now he 
 hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not 
 the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, 
 Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those 
 things that are shaken, as of things that are made, 
 that those things which cannot be shaken may 
 remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which 
 cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we 
 may serve God acceptably with godly fear." f 
 " And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my 
 Father hath appointed unto me ; that ye may eat 
 and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on 
 thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." % 
 " He was taken up, after that he through the Holy 
 
 * Eph. i. 3, 9, 10, 19-23. f Hcb. xii. 18-28. 
 
 \ St. Luke xxii. 29, 30. 
 
The Way of Salvation, 185 
 
 Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles 
 whom he had chosen : to whom also he had showed 
 himself alive after his passion by many infallible 
 proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking 
 of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God : 
 and, being assembled together with them, com- 
 manded them that they should not depart from Je- 
 rusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, 
 which, saith he, ye have heard of me. For John 
 truly baptized with water ; but ye shall be baptized 
 with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. When 
 they therefore were come together, they asked of 
 him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore 
 again the kingdom to Israel ? And he said unto 
 them, It is not for you to know the times or the 
 seasons, which the Father hath put in his own 
 power. But ye shall receive power, after that the 
 Holy Ghost is come upon you." * 
 
 That the apostles, after they had " received 
 power," did found a visible Christian church, with 
 a clergy, sacraments, government, public worship, 
 and at least one holyday, is believed by all orthodox 
 Protestants. They all believe in some sense that 
 article of the Creed, " the Holy, Catholic Church." 
 Even Congregationalists or Independents admit 
 that there is a certain type or form of outward, visi- 
 ble organization, according to which all particular 
 * Acts i. 2-8. 
 
1 86 The Way of Salvation, 
 
 churches ought to be constituted, and that all these 
 ought to be united together in mutual fellowship 
 and communion. It is not necessary, therefore, to 
 prove that there is a visible church which is the or- 
 dinary means of salvation, or to prove the import- 
 ance and obligation of some kind of unity binding 
 together all the members of this church. 
 
 The point to be proved is that the visible church 
 is constituted in a strict organic unity, as one soci- 
 ety, one kingdom, one body, undivided in itself and 
 divided from all other societies, unchangeable, per- 
 petual, exclusive, sovereign — a church, "one, holy, 
 catholic, and apostolic," in the strict Catholic sense 
 as distinguished from each and every Protestant 
 variation. 
 
 I shall prove this, first, by deduction from what 
 has been already proved. It has been proved that 
 grace is conferred through sacraments, which cannot 
 be lawfully and efficaciously received except on 
 condition of certain dispositions respecting both 
 faith and morals ; and that the state of grace itself 
 exacts the fulfilment of a certain fixed law of reli- 
 gion and morality, in which true Christian and jus- 
 tifying righteousness essentially consists, and 
 through which heaven is to be obtained as its due 
 reward. Now, these things cannot exist with cer- 
 tainty and stability ; except in a perfectly-organized 
 society, in which there is a sovereign authority de- 
 
The Way of Salvation. 187 
 
 termiuing faith, discipline, and morals ; without a 
 perpetual miracle. Nothing can be more obvious 
 than this must be to any one who will reflect on it 
 attentively. 
 
 First, in respect to the sacraments themselves ; 
 their number, their nature, the conditions of their 
 valid and lawful administration, must be certainly 
 defined, and provision must be made for their re- 
 ception by all persons, everywhere, and through all 
 time, who are desirous of receiving them and are 
 properly disposed. All this requires that authority 
 to teach, to make laws, to judge and decide upon 
 all questions and all cases- arising out of the admin- 
 istration of the sacraments, should be delegated by 
 God to certain persons. This authority must ex- 
 tend over the whole church and all its members 
 throughout the world and until the end of time. 
 It will be sufficient to show this more minutely in 
 respect to one sacrament only — the sacrament of 
 baptism. First, as to the ministers of the sacra- 
 ment. As it is a sacrament of initiation into the 
 church, the right to administer it must be confided 
 to certain persons having authority to examine and 
 instruct candidates, to judge of their qualification 
 for membership, and to give them legal admission. 
 These persons must be designated by a fixed and 
 uniform law, and there can be no law without legis- 
 lators and judges, without subordination of inferior 
 
i88 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 to superior tribunals, or without one supreme au- 
 thority and tribunal of the last resort. If there is 
 dispute and dissension concerning the persons who 
 are competent to give baptism validly and lawfully 
 in the name of Christ, doubt and uncertainty are 
 thrown upon the true way of salvation at its very 
 entrance. How can one know whether he has re- 
 ceived the real sacrament or not, unless there is a 
 judgment, pronounced by a supreme tribunal estab- 
 lished by Jesus Christ himself, declaring what per- 
 sons are capable of administering the sacrament 
 validly ? A Catholic knows that any person who- 
 soever can administer the sacrament validly, how- 
 ever irregular or unlawful his act may be. But he 
 knows this only by the judgment of the Holy See. 
 A Protestant cannot know whether lay baptism or 
 the baptism of a schismatical minister is valid or 
 invalid, nor can he even know what is necessary to 
 make a man a real minister of Jesus Christ. The 
 validity of sacraments administered in schism and 
 heresy was denied by St. Cyprian and many others 
 before the Roman Church finally decided the ques- 
 tion. The validity of any baptism not administered 
 by a bishop, priest, or deacon, who has received 
 true episcopal ordination, is denied by a number of 
 learned Anglicans. 
 
 The necessary matter and form of -the sacrament 
 is another question of equal importance, which has 
 
The Way of Salvation. 189 
 
 caused a great schism among Protestants, and 
 which cannot be decided without the judgment of 
 a supreme tribunal which all Christians are bound 
 to obey. 
 
 The subjects capable of receiving baptism must 
 also be determined. Are infants and idiots capable 
 or incapable subjects ? Are persons who are bap- 
 tized without the required inward dispositions 
 validly baptized or not ? And what are they to do, 
 in order to rectify the wrong they have done to 
 themselves and to God by receiving a sacrament in 
 a sacrilegious- manner? 
 
 There are, moreover, other matters to be deter- 
 mined which respect, not the essence of the sacra- 
 ment and the conditions of its validity, but its re- 
 gular and lawful administration. It is evident that 
 only those lawfully authorized by Jesus Christ have 
 the right to administer the sacrament, whatever 
 may be the case respecting the validity of the act 
 when performed by other persons. It is equally 
 evident that it must be a sin to receive baptism from 
 any person who is not lawfully authorized to ad- 
 minister it. And this law, again, presupposes a 
 tribunal and a judge having a supreme and univer- 
 sal authority over the whole church, both clergy and 
 people. Without it endless dissensions and schisms 
 must occur, as is seen from the history of all sects 
 which have separated from the Roman Church. 
 
190 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 The dispositions which are requisite in adult 
 catechumens, and the obligations which all baptized 
 persons contract in the sacrament, make it still more 
 manifest that the church must be constituted 
 in a strict organic unity under a supreme autho- 
 rity. 
 
 These dispositions and obligations relate, in the 
 first place, to faith. A catechumen must believe in 
 the doctrines revealed by God through the prophets 
 and apostles, as a condition of receiving baptism 
 worthily. He must learn these doctrines from some 
 certain and authentic source. The church is the 
 judge of the correctness and sufficiency of his faith, 
 and must therefore possess a standard and rule of 
 faith which is explicit and invariable, and have a 
 magistracy committed to certain authorized teach- 
 ers and judges, who must be the same persons who 
 are authorized to admit candidates into the church 
 through baptism. These persons are, of course, the 
 pastors and clergy of the church. And, as they are 
 necessarily very numerous, it is impossible that they 
 should be kept to a correct standard and rule of 
 teaching and judgment without an authority of 
 superior over inferior pastors, who are relatively few 
 in number, without tribunals regularly constituted, 
 to which the pastors themselves are amenable, and 
 without some supreme tribunal, whose jurisdiction 
 is universal, by which the chief pastors themselves 
 
The Way of Salvation. 191 
 
 are regulated and kept to one uniform standard 
 of doctrine. 
 
 The baptized person must continue to profess the 
 true faith as a condition of receiving the other 
 sacraments, remaining in the state of justification, 
 and attaining salvation. He must educate his 
 children in the same faith. He is responsible to 
 the church, as well as to God, for the fulfilment of 
 this obligation. The pastors of the church must, 
 therefore, teach him sound doctrine, warn him 
 against all errors in faith, watch over the instruc- 
 tion of his children, and exercise discipline over 
 him if he goes astray — even, if necessary, excom- 
 municate him. If there are diverse teachers, doc- 
 trines, and sects, each claiming to be true and to 
 possess the right to his allegiance, he must follow 
 the true pastor, the true doctrine, the true church. 
 This teaching authority, this doctrine, this church, 
 must be the one established by Jesus Christ, and 
 the same in all times and places. There can be but 
 one way of salvation for all men. But how can all 
 men, everywhere, recognize it, unless its unity is 
 visible, and one supreme doctrinal authority deter- 
 mines for the whole world which are the legitimate 
 pastors who teach the true faith and govern the 
 true church ? 
 
 The second condition for a worthy reception of 
 baptism is repentance for the sins which the person 
 
192 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 has committed, and a resolution to keep the whole 
 law of God. A new obligation to keep the natural 
 law springs out of the baptismal vows, and an obli- 
 gation is contracted to keep the specifically Chris- 
 tian precepts. In respect to these moral duties the 
 baptized person is responsible to the church, and 
 amenable to her discipline. The church is, there- 
 fore, the judge of all ethical questions and relations, 
 which are extremely numerous, minute, and compli- 
 cated. How can the member of the church guide 
 himself according fo her true teaching 111 respect to 
 morals, be secure against the danger of false teach- 
 ing from his own particular pastors, or have any 
 safeguard for his own rights of conscience against 
 injustice and tyranny on their part, unless there 
 is one supreme tribunal to which all alike are sub- 
 ject, and which establishes one uniform moral code 
 throughout the whole church ? 
 
 It is, moreover, evident that no merely external 
 organization under a hierarchical government with 
 one supreme head would be sufficient to secure 
 unity in the true faith and doctrine, and the right 
 administration of discipline, without the perpetual 
 exercise of a supernatural providence over the church. 
 The church must be governed by the Holy Spirit, 
 and made indefectible and infallible, otherwise it is 
 liable to become corrupt in doctrine and practice, 
 and to lead men away from the faith and law of 
 
The Way of Salvation. 193 
 
 Christ. This would be the destruction of the Way 
 of Salvation provided by God for all mankind, and 
 the construction of a new way to perdition. God 
 could not permit this to take place. For, if he has 
 constructed an ark in which he has commanded all 
 men to embark, that they may pass over the sea of 
 the world to the shore of eternal life, he must 
 provide for the safe passage of the ark, and cannot 
 permit it to be engulfed in the waves of the 
 ocean. 
 
 A sincere and religious person, a Presbyterian for 
 example, might here reply as follows : " I admit 
 the necessity of a positive and certain rule of faith 
 and practice, of belief in definitely and clearly pro- 
 posed doctrines and obedience to fixed and well- 
 known laws. I believe that God has really provided 
 a Way of Salvation, which the soul that is guided by 
 divine grace cannot mistake, in which it cannot err, 
 and by which it walks securely to eternal life. I 
 have that rule of faith in the Word of God con- 
 tained in the Bible, and I have in the same a rule of 
 life. This rule of faith has come to me through the 
 church and the religious teachers under whose in- 
 struction I have been brought up. I do not pre- 
 tend that they are infallible. But it is not neces- 
 sary that they should be. It is sufficient that I 
 have evidence that they do not actually err or 
 deceive me in proposing to me the Scriptures. This 
 
194 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 evidence I have. Moreover, since the Word of God 
 has come to me safely through their hands, I may 
 presume that it is safe for me to receive the sacra 
 ments also from the same hands. Besides this, the 
 interior light and consolation which I receive from 
 the Holy Spirit, which I can no more distrust than 
 I can distrust the light of reason and conscience, 
 give me an assurance that I am safe and in the right 
 way, and I am confirmed in this security by the 
 agreement which I see existing among many per- 
 sons who give evidence of being truly sanctified by 
 the Holy Spirit, in the same doctrine and the same 
 practice of religious observances which I have been 
 taught, and which I believe to be right." 
 
 In replying to this plausible statement, which I 
 believe to be a correct expression of the real mental 
 attitude in which most of those who call themselves 
 Evangelical Christians stand toward the Catholic 
 Church, when they consider with any serious at- 
 tention the call which she makes upon them to re- 
 turn to her bosom, I shall reserve the last part of 
 it for separate examination. By this last part, I in- 
 tend all that relates to the light of the Holy Spirit 
 in the soul of the individual. The first part I shall 
 refute by a process which may seem to be remote 
 and indirect, but which I think will be found by any 
 one who follows it patiently and attentively to be 
 conclusive and satisfactory. 
 
The Way of Salvation. 195 
 
 In the first place, then, I beg of my Presbyterian 
 or Evangelical friend, who believes that he is in 
 possession of what he is fond of calling " the whole 
 counsel of God " in regard to the way of salvation, 
 to enquire of himself how he originally acquired this 
 conviction or belief. I refer now to that belief 
 which he has had from his childhood, which pre- 
 existed to that moment when he supposes that his 
 justification took place, and which exists in those 
 who give an intellectual assent to Evangelical doc- 
 trines. It is evident that he first believed these 
 doctrines on the authority of his parents, and after- 
 wards on that also of his religious teachers. This is 
 the way established by God in the order of nature, 
 and also in the order of grace. God has placed 
 children under the tutelage of parents, and has im- 
 planted in their souls a disposition to believe and 
 obey their teaching. Wherever any kind of organ- 
 ized religious or scientific instruction exists in the 
 community, the children who are its recipients 
 naturally and unavoidably submit to it with the 
 same docility which their nature inclines them to 
 exercise toward their parents. My Presbyterian 
 friend will admit that God originally established 
 this order as a secure and infallible method of in- 
 structing and directing the whole human race in all 
 things relating both to their temporal and eternal 
 welfare. Adam and Eve, in their primitive state, 
 
196 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 were qualified to instruct their children in all divine 
 and human wisdom. If sin had never entered the 
 world, all parents and elders would have been the 
 successors of Adam and Eve in the same office and 
 with the same perfect qualifications. The order of 
 Providence respecting instruction which still exists 
 in human nature is, therefore, something which has 
 survived the fall, like marriage, and is a divine insti- 
 tution, impaired but not destroyed. So far as it 
 exists in connection with the divine plan of re- 
 demption, it is an original institution of the primi- 
 tive state restored. In its impaired and imperfect 
 state it is evident that this institution can neither 
 be so completely perverted as to become the means 
 of teaching nothing but absolute falsehood, and pre- 
 scribing nothing but that which is absolutely sinful, 
 nor yet sufficient to teach the absolute truth and 
 prescribe all that which is morally good without 
 mixture of evil. In that proportion in which it 
 approximates to the original institution of God, it 
 must contain a greater amount of that truth and 
 morality, which would have been transmitted in their 
 integrity if the original state of mankind had con- 
 tinued in ail its perfection. And in its restored 
 condition it ought to be equivalent to what it was 
 intended to remain in perpetuity, according to the 
 first plan of God, if our first parents had not sinned. 
 Therefore, in the case of those who are educated in 
 
The Way of Salvation. 197 
 
 every other religion or sect except in the true 
 church, there must be a greater or lesser amount of 
 truth taught them by their parents and other 
 natural instructors, together with a lesser or greater 
 amount of error. Now, as error cannot have any 
 authority over the mind and conscience of a rational 
 creature, it must be both the right and the duty of 
 every man to reject that part of the instruction 
 which he has received from his parents and elders 
 which is erroneous, whenever he is reasonably con- 
 vinced that it is erroneous, and to accept the truth 
 which is presented to him from some other source. 
 It is always possible for him to obtain this convic- 
 tion, under every supposition but one, viz., that he 
 has been educated under an infallible teaching, 
 which has given him the pure and complete truth, 
 unmixed with error. 
 
 Now, let us examine the principal gradations of 
 religious teaching under which various classes of the 
 human race are educated, and which our Presbyte- 
 rian friend condemns as essentially erroneous or im- 
 perfect, until we come to his own doctrine ; that we 
 may see if the principle on which he condemns the 
 one nearest to himself, and which is available for 
 the condemnation of every lower one successively 
 until we reach the lowest, is not of equal conclusive- 
 ness against his own position. Beginning at the 
 lowest form of religion, heathenism, what argument 
 
198 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 would a philosophical and at the same time religi- 
 ously orthodox Jew, who may be taken to represent 
 both Theism, and Revealed Religion in its most 
 general sense, employ, to convince an intelligent, 
 upright pagan that he ought to believe in One God 
 as revealed by the light of reason and the Old Tes- 
 tament ? The argument will be one proving that 
 the very principles and judgments of reason and 
 conscience, as educated under the influence of his 
 ancestral religion, require him to cast off every part 
 of it which contradicts the doctrine of pure Mono- 
 theism. It will, moreover, prove to him that the 
 Old Testament is an authentic record of a more 
 ancient and universal history, tradition, law, than 
 his own ; of which his own is only a disfigured copy ; 
 and that it contains a revelation from God accre- 
 dited by the most satisfactory and incontestable 
 evidence. 
 
 In what manner will a Unitarian argue, in turn, 
 with the Jew, to convince him of the truth of Chris- 
 tianity? He will show him that the divine mission 
 of Jesus Christ is clearly proved by the Old Tes- 
 tament, and in various other ways will argue that 
 Judaism has its proper development and completion 
 in Christianity. All the motives of credibility 
 which establish the truth of Judaism, therefore, 
 prove equally the truth of Christianity. 
 
 The Unitarian, in turn, must answer for himself 
 
The Way of Salvation. 199 
 
 to our Presbyterian friend. He will argue that 
 Jesus Christ, the great Prophet and Teacher, sent 
 from God to take up and complete the mission of 
 Moses, taught his own true and proper divinity as 
 a fundamental doctrine of the faith. Moreover, 
 that he provided for the teaching of the faith to 
 all nations by his apostles, whose writings contain 
 the doctrines of the Trinity, Incarnation, Redemp- 
 tion, Original Sin, the necessity of regeneration and 
 supernatural grace, and other doctrines, rejected by 
 the Unitarian. He will argue, moreover, that it 
 was the mission of Christianity to convert all na- 
 tions to the knowledge and worship of the One True 
 God ; and that all Christians, except a handful, wor- 
 ship the One God in Three Persons, one of whom is 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, God made Man, and crucified 
 for us ; hoping for salvation through his precious blood. 
 Unitarians, therefore, have separated themselves from 
 the mass of believers, have made for themselves a 
 pseudo-Christianity, have renounced the genuine, 
 authentic doctrine of Christ and the apostles, and are 
 thus in flagrant contradiction to their profession of 
 being followers and disciples of Jesus Christ. Even 
 though the Unitarian should profess to believe the 
 Bible as containing the pure and perfect revelation 
 of divine truth, or even as being inspired in all its 
 parts by the Spirit of God, the Presbyterian will tell 
 him that this is of no avail to establish his character 
 
200 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 as a Christian, since he does not believe the true 
 and real sense of the Bible, but his own false inter- 
 pretation. As the principles which inform the 
 natural reason and conscience of the pagan require 
 him to believe in One God, the author of revelation ; 
 and as the principles of the Theist and the Jew re- 
 quire them to believe in the revelation made by 
 Jesus Christ ; so the principles and motives of credi- 
 bility by which the Unitarian is convinced of the 
 divine mission of Jesus Christ equally prove his 
 true and proper divinity, the Trinity, and the whole 
 body of doctrine contained and implied in the or- 
 thodox creed of the universal church. 
 
 Our Presbyterian friend must now face the argu- 
 ments of one who stands in a higher grade than 
 himself — that is, the advocate of a church professing 
 to be founded on the apostolic succession of its 
 bishops, and to be identical in constitution and doc- 
 trine with the apostolic church. Passing by the 
 Protestant Episcopalian, we will bring forward the 
 true, genuine High-Churchman — that is, the cham- 
 pion of the Greek Church. He will be able to prove 
 to the Presbyterian that his sect has done precisely 
 the same thing which he accuses the sect of Unita- 
 rians of having perpetrated. Professing to recognize 
 the divine authority of Jesus Christ, it has rejected 
 a large part of the doctrine which he has taught. 
 It has rejected the polity, order, and teaching au- 
 
The Way of Salvation. 201 
 
 thority established at his command by the apos- 
 tles. It has given a new and false sense to an 
 essential part of the teaching of the Holy Scripture, 
 and altogether rejected a large part of the true 
 canon of Scripture as apocryphal. It has sepa- 
 rated itself from the great body of Christian be- 
 lievers, denied a portion of the orthodox creed of 
 the universal church, and mingled heresy with the 
 remainder which it has retained. You have received, 
 the Greek may say to the Presbyterian, your Bible 
 and your interpretation of it, your mode of worship 
 and your rule of life as a Christian, from the in- 
 struction of your parents and pastors, who have 
 professed to teach you in the name of the church 
 of Christ, and in the name of Christ himself. 
 But go back a little, and you will find that your 
 ancestors revolted from the instruction which 
 they had received from the church in which they 
 had been educated ; which had come down from the 
 teachers of their first Christian ancestors by whom 
 they were converted to Christ ; from the earliest 
 ages, and from the founders of universal Christen- 
 dom. From that ancient church you have received 
 your canon of the New Testament, that part of the 
 canon of the Old Testament which you retain, your 
 creeds, your orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, the 
 Incarnation, and whatever else you profess which is 
 orthodox as opposed to the Arian, Sabellian, Nes- 
 
202 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 torian, Eutychian, Monothelite, Pelagian, and 
 Semipelagian heresies. Your General Assembly in 
 the United States vindicated your orthodoxy before 
 the Bishop of Rome, the primate of Christendom, 
 on the plea that you accept the definitions of the 
 first six (Ecumenical Councils as a true testi- 
 mony of the faith delivered to the church by 
 the apostles. If their testimony to the doctrines 
 of the orthodox and catholic creed respecting 
 the Trinity and the Incarnation is worthy to 
 be received ; you have the same reason for receiv- 
 ing it, concerning that entire body of doctrine and 
 that complete system of ecclesiastical polity which 
 all the bishops and doctors of the age of these first 
 councils, the very heretics whom they condemned 
 and excommunicated assenting, declare to have 
 been received from the apostles. The article of 
 11 The One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church " 
 is as much a part of the Creed as the one which de- 
 fines that Jesus Christ is " of one substance with 
 the Father." The orthodox churches of Alexan- 
 dria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Ephesus, Athens, and the 
 other episcopal sees of the East, where St. Peter, St. 
 Paul, St. Athanasius, St. John Chrysostom, preached 
 and governed, have never changed their doctrine, 
 their polity, their worship. But you have changed, 
 founded a new church, invented a new religion, 
 wholly diverse from that which existed throughout 
 
The Way of Salvatio?i. 203 
 
 the Catholic Church before the East and the West 
 were divided ; and from that of every sect which has 
 retained the episcopal succession, the priesthood, 
 the sacrifice, the seven sacraments, and the outward 
 semblance of conformity to the constitution of the 
 church which the apostles established. Therefore, 
 your claim to orthodoxy and your profession of fol- 
 lowing the doctrine and law of Christ and the 
 apostles are futile, and your own principles require 
 you to return to that catholic church which your 
 forefathers abandoned. 
 
 All that the Greek can say to the Presbyterian 
 can be with equal justice retorted upon himself. 
 He is a schismatic. What he calls the Orthodox 
 or Holy Eastern Church has not organic unity even 
 in itself, but is an aggregation of independent 
 churches without a head. It is not in communion 
 with the great body of the bishops whose apostolic 
 descent it recognizes. It has revolted against the 
 Apostolic See, whose primacy its own formularies 
 confess, and whose supreme authority its patriarchs 
 recognized and obeyed while it was in unity with 
 all catholic Christendom. It teaches the faith re- 
 specting the One, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, 
 yet practically denies that the church exists on the 
 earth ; since it dare not assume to possess and exer- 
 cise the functions of the catholic church in its 
 separate state, and will not acknowledge the right 
 
204 The Way of Salvation, 
 
 of the true church to that august title and supreme 
 power which really belong to her. The Greek 
 schismatic, therefore, while he calls himself a Cath- 
 olic, confesses that he adheres to a fragment which 
 once made a portion of the Catholic Church. His 
 boasted catholicity is but a theory which his prac- 
 tice contradicts. The admonition which he address- 
 es to the Presbyterian falls with an inevitable 
 and crushing rebound upon his own head. 
 
 There is, therefore, in every form of religious and 
 moral instruction by authority, except that which is 
 given by a supreme and infallible Teacher, a flaw 
 which sooner or later betrays itself. Reason and 
 conscience are awakened and in part instructed by 
 this imperfect teaching. But they are awakened 
 and instructed by a teaching which does not satisfy 
 their demands, but causes them to long for a guide 
 to lead them higher, and an instruction which is 
 more complete and self-consistent. One who looks 
 for truth by means of natural reason alone desires 
 to find a perfect and complete philosophy. One 
 who looks for the highest truth in a revelation from 
 God desires to know that revelation certainly and 
 completely, at least so far as it is necessary for his 
 spiritual good. Moreover, reason and conscience 
 cannot rightly and honorably subject themselves to 
 any human instruction, except because and in so 
 far as this instruction is reasonably considered as a 
 
The Way of Salvation. 205 
 
 mere instrument of God, whose mind alone is the 
 measure of truth and his will of good. Why does 
 the child reverence, believe, and obey his parents? 
 He dimly apprehends in them a certain majesty, 
 authority, and protecting love which he after- 
 wards discovers to have their being in God. They 
 represent God to him before he knows that God 
 exists and made him. When his reason and con- 
 science are developed, he knows that his duty to 
 them is derived from, and measured by, his duty to 
 God. The obligation of retaining in his adult age 
 the faith they have taught him rests on the con- 
 viction that it is God's truth. It is the same with 
 all teaching by human authority. The learner re- 
 ceives what is taught him, because he cannot know 
 the truth immediately by his own faculties. He 
 trusts in the testimony or judgment of others, in 
 respect to those things which he does not know by 
 his own experience or reason, because he believes 
 that their testimony and judgment are certainly or 
 probably exempt, either altogether or to a certain 
 extent, from liability to error ; that they cannot in 
 these matters be deceived or deceivers. That is to 
 say, he trusts to them to transmit to him that which 
 God makes known through the natural light of 
 reason. Those whose testimony is entirely credible 
 ought to agree together respecting the same things, 
 and those whose judgments arc unerring ought like- 
 
206 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 wise to agree ; for truth is one, and contradiction 
 shows that there is error somewhere. If parents, and 
 other instructors who are in the place of parents, 
 could, as such, and by the virtue of their office in 
 the order of nature, give their children and pupils a 
 perfectly true and sufficient instruction, which they 
 might and ought to follow all their lives without 
 fear of error, in respect to religious truth and moral 
 duty, then all parents and instructors should agree 
 in their teaching and precepts ; their teaching should 
 be one and catholic. This would have been the 
 case if the human race had remained in the state of 
 original justice and integrity. It is the case now in 
 the Catholic Church, because parents and particular 
 instructors of children and simple people have be- 
 hind them a catholic and infallible authority. The 
 church teaches through the parents, and the Holy 
 Spirit through the church, and thus all the children 
 of the church are " docibiles Dei " — the docile pupils 
 of God. Adam was to his children a supreme and 
 unerring authority in religion. In like manner 
 Noah was to his children, and Abraham, Isaac, and 
 Jacob to theirs. Moses was the same to the chil- 
 dren of Israel, and Jesus Christ is the same in a 
 higher sense, as having authority in his own Person, 
 and being himself Truth and Life — " the Light that 
 enlighteneth every man who cometh into the 
 world." 
 
The Way of Salvation. 207 
 
 Every intelligent and reflecting person who pro- 
 fesses to be an orthodox believer in Christianity 
 must see and admit, I am very sure, that reason 
 and conscience cannot fully and unconditionally 
 recognize the authority of any teacher in religion 
 who is not supreme and infallible, and must recog- 
 nize that of one who is. Reason and conscience 
 represent God in the bosom of each individual. An 
 authority which is not supreme and infallible, if it 
 is legitimate, represents God also, but only in the 
 same limited sense that the individual reason and 
 conscience represent him — that is, in so far as it gives 
 satisfactory warrant that its judgments and precepts 
 are in fact exempt from error, and are in conformity 
 to truth and right. As there may be an erroneous 
 conscience and false reasonings in the mind of an in- 
 dividual which need correction ; so in the command- 
 ments of an authority not supreme, and the judg- 
 ments of one not infallible, there may be something 
 prescribed as a moral duty or proposed as a reli- 
 gious truth which is sinful or false ; and therefore 
 contrary to the precepts and instructions of that 
 supreme authority whose commandments and judg- 
 ments are capable of being known immediately and 
 directly by the individual conscience and reason ; 
 and, if known, must be obeyed, despite all human 
 authority. There is, therefore, no merely temporal 
 authority which is absolutely sovereign, whether in 
 
208 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 the family or the state. And there is no human 
 spiritual authority which is absolutely sovereign 
 over the reason and conscience, except that which 
 is infallible. It is always supposable that an au- 
 thority which does not infallibly represent God may 
 require an individual to do that which he knows by 
 his own reason and conscience to be contrary to the 
 law of God, or to profess belief in something which 
 he knows to be contrary to the truth of God ; and in 
 either case he has the right and duty of resisting 
 even to death. But once admit that the authority 
 does infallibly represent God, and that reasonable 
 evidence of this is proposed to the reason and con- 
 science, and no possible reason to justify disobedi- 
 ence can be found ; because one must disobey his 
 own reason and conscience in disobeying such an 
 authority. This is easily seen by considering the 
 absolute faith and obedience due to Our Lord Jesus 
 Christ in his own person. If we suppose a man, 
 whose wisdom and virtue were the most perfect 
 that a mere man could possibly acquire by all natu- 
 ral means and by the grace of God, to have seen Our 
 Lord while he was living on this earth ; we must ad- 
 mit that he would have been obliged to submit his 
 reason and conscience unreservedly to His au- 
 thority as soon as he knew who He really was. 
 Nevertheless, it would be only the humanity of 
 Christ which was visible to him. He would see his 
 
The Way of Salvation, 209 
 
 human form, hear his human voice, receive the 
 instruction of his human intellect and the com- 
 mands of his human will. He would not perceive 
 directly his divine nature, but believe that he was 
 truly God, on his own testimony, by faith. He 
 would be obliged to recognize that as Man his au- 
 thority was supreme and infallible. He would be 
 obliged to believe every word that he uttered, 
 whatever his previous convictions might have been, 
 and to do whatever he commanded him. To have 
 made an objection that his own reason and con- 
 science did not sanction the doctrine or direction 
 given him by Jesus Christ would have been the 
 most intolerable folly, as well as the most audacious 
 insolence. Now, suppose that Our Lord delegated 
 this supreme and infallible authority to one who 
 should be his representative and vicar on the earth 
 after his own departure, in what respect would the 
 obligation of this man toward the Vicar of Christ 
 differ from his obligation toward Christ himself? 
 Evidently, within the sphere of the delegated au- 
 thority, in no wise. My Presbyterian friend will 
 admit that the doctrine and law which Jesus Christ 
 commands him to receive are the doctrine and law 
 of Jesus Christ himself, through whatever medium 
 they are transmitted to him with unerring certainty. 
 He will admit that they must be transmitted to 
 him in some way which supplies for the lack of that 
 
210 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 visible presence of Jesus Christ which his immedi- 
 ate disciples enjoyed. He will admit the necessity 
 of an infallible rule of faith and practice, at least in 
 regard to things necessary to salvation. 
 
 But he may still insist that Jesus Christ in his 
 own person is his Infallible Teacher directly through 
 his word contained in the Holy Scripture, which 
 he understands by the light of the Holy Spirit 
 communicated to his own individual spirit. And 
 he may adduce in his own favor the parting pro- 
 mise of Christ : "I will pray the Father, and he 
 shall give you another Comforter, that he may 
 abide with you for ever ; even the Spirit of truth ; 
 whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth 
 him not, neither knoweth him : but ye know him ; 
 for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." * 
 
 I shall not deny that the Holy Spirit enlightens 
 individual believers to understand and delight in 
 the treasures of the Holy Scripture. This is not, 
 however, the question at issue. The real question 
 is, whether Jesus Christ has left the Scripture, with 
 the light of the Holy Spirit, as the sufficient and 
 only rule of faith to each and every individual be- 
 liever ; and to the church as a mere collection of in- 
 dividuals united together in a common belief, which 
 is constituted by the similitude of their private 
 judgments upon the sense of Holy Scripture. 
 * St. John xiv. 16, 17. 
 
The Way of Salvation, 211 
 
 If this were really the method appointed by Jesus 
 Christ for teaching, propagating, and perpetuating 
 his doctrine and law, it is evident that it would pro- 
 duce unity in faith among the whole multitude 
 of true believers. The Holy Spirit cannot teach 
 diverse doctrines. But diverse doctrines, producing 
 separate sects, have always been found among the 
 multitude of those who profess to be followers of Je- 
 sus Christ, and to receive the New Testament as an 
 infallible rule of faith. What is the criterion for de- 
 termining who are the true disciples of Jesus Christ, 
 truly illuminated by the Holy Spirit ? What is the 
 certain test by which each individual can discern 
 the grace of the Holy Spirit in himself from illusions 
 of his own spirit or the spirit of darkness? If it is 
 said that holiness of life is the test, Protestants will 
 find it very difficult to apply this test in such a way 
 as to establish which among their various sects is en- 
 titled to claim the possession of the true doctrine. 
 They will find it still more difficult to establish the 
 claim of any form of Protestantism in particular, or 
 of any sort of vague, general system which they 
 may please to call " evangelical," against the ancient 
 or modern Catholic Church. They can bring for- 
 ward nothing but their own private opinion or 
 sentiment, a mere assertion that such and such 
 doctrines are taught by the Holy Spirit to all true 
 believers, and that those who hold them are the 
 
212 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 persons whom he really enlightens. But this is of 
 no avail as a certain test and criterion. It is a 
 purely subjective persuasion, in which the subject 
 of it may be easily deluded, and which cannot be 
 the object of a reasonable credibility to any other 
 person, unless it is capable of proof by sound and 
 satisfactory reasons. Therefore Protestants have 
 been forced to throw themselves back upon reason ; 
 and to rely upon philosophical, theological, critical, 
 and historical proofs, in order to establish and de- 
 fend their system of doctrine, and each doctrine of 
 these systems in particular ; and to prove that their 
 interpretation of the Holy Scriptures is correct. In 
 the first place, they establish a basis of Natural Theo- 
 logy by rational arguments. They prove the ex- 
 istence, unity, and infinite perfection of God ; cre- 
 ation, providence, final causes, the spiritual and 
 immortal essence of the human soul, and the ne- 
 cessity of religion. Upon this basis they establish 
 revealed theology. They adduce the motives of 
 credibility proving the Mosaic and Christian revela- 
 tion. They proceed to establish the canon of 
 Scripture, its authority and inspiration, and after- 
 wards to investigate its true sense and meaning, 
 and to adduce proofs of one doctrine after another, 
 answering, as well, objections from reason or from 
 different interpretations of revelation. Whatever 
 private revelations or immediate lights of the Holy 
 
The Way of Salvation. 213 
 
 Spirit any individual or any number of persons 
 may profess to have received — for example, Mon- 
 tanus, Tertullian, Jacob Bohme, Swedenborg, the 
 Mystics of the fifteenth century, the Chevalier 
 Bunsen, or Edward Irving — they test and judge these 
 by principles of reason and by the sense of the 
 Holy Scripture as received by their own particular 
 sect or theological school. They appeal also to the 
 consent of the multitude of those whom they con- 
 sider to be the true believers, in holding certain 
 doctrines, and to their inward conviction that the 
 faith by which they believe is produced by the 
 Holy Spirit ; but they do not appeal to this as 
 separate from, and independent of, an extrinsic rule 
 of faith. Even in the case of prophets and inspired 
 men, like Moses, Isaias, and St. Paul, they recog- 
 nize the necessity of an exterior test, an objective 
 evidence, a sanction of some kind, by which obedi- 
 ence to the proclamations they make as messen- 
 gers of God is made reasonable and obligatory. 
 They do not except Jesus Christ himself; for they 
 establish the reasonableness and the obligation of 
 believing his affirmation that he is the co-equal Son 
 of God the Father, upon evidence, and principally 
 upon prophecy and miracles. 
 
 I have no wish to deny the subjective certainty 
 of belief produced directly and immediately by the 
 Holy Spirit in the souls of individuals. Undoubt- 
 
214 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 edly, God can make, and frequently has made, reve- 
 lations to individual persons, accompanied by such 
 a light that it would be impossible for them to reject 
 them as false or doubtful without a deliberate vio- 
 lence to reason and conscience alike. There have 
 been many other revelations made to individuals 
 which, with greater or less approach to certainty, 
 may be considered, by themselves especially, and by 
 others also who know the reasons of believing them 
 to be divine, as having a claim to credence. More- 
 over, the Holy Spirit sends his illuminations and 
 inspirations to all men, especially to those who 
 have divine faith ; and the faith of a true believer 
 is always a gift of God, and par excellence the work 
 of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is, however, 
 always consistent with himself. He is the Eternal 
 and Unchangeable Truth. All his teachings are 
 consistent with each other. He is the author of the 
 light of reason, and of all revelations, universal 
 and particular. He cannot reveal anything contrary 
 to reason, or reveal to any individual anything con- 
 trary to the revelation he has made to all mankind. 
 Where contrary doctrines come into collision, each 
 claiming to proceed from the Holy Spirit, there 
 must be some test or criterion of discernment be- 
 tween them ; otherwise certainty is overthrown. In 
 the order of nature reason has the precedence. The 
 light of reason is common and universal, and is the 
 
The Way of Salvation. 215 
 
 prerequisite condition without which the superna- 
 tural light cannot affect the human intellect. It is 
 impossible to believe in God without acknowledg- 
 ing that he created this light. It is by reason that 
 the credibility of revelation is established. It fur- 
 nishes, moreover, a negative test of the intrinsic 
 credibility of that which claims to be revealed truth. 
 That is, nothing can be received as really revealed 
 by God and to be believed on his veracity which is 
 evidently contrary to reason. And when a public, 
 universal, fully-accredited revelation has been made, 
 it furnishes a test and criterion for trying and judg- 
 ing all private revelations. Nothing which is con- 
 trary to any one of its doctrines can be listened to 
 for a moment, as having any claim to credence, or 
 even to examination. Moreover, a private revela- 
 tion is worthless, unless there is some ground, based 
 on sound reason and on revelation, for giving heed to 
 it. When a sole, sufficient, and unerring rule of 
 faith for Christians has been once established by 
 conclusive proofs, nothing else can be admitted as 
 participating in its authority or independent of it. 
 A Presbyterian, or other Protestant, who regards 
 the Bible as the only, sufficient, and unerring rule 
 of faith, must therefore admit that everything it 
 teaches requires his immediate and unconditional 
 assent as soon as it is discovered to him ; and that 
 all private opinions, even if he thinks that he has 
 
2 1 6 The Way of Salvation, 
 
 formed them under the influence of the Holy Spirit, 
 or has received them from persons supposed to be 
 specially enlightened, must give way. He cannot 
 plead that the light of the Holy Spirit within him 
 is of equal authority with the revelation contained 
 in the Scripture, or of any authority at all as dis- 
 tinct from the Scripture itself which is apprehended 
 by this light. The rule is something external, ob- 
 jective, determined, and universal. There is a fixed 
 and objective sense to every paragraph of the Holy 
 Scripture, which the writer intended to express and 
 convey to the reader, and the Holy Spirit intended 
 he should convey. This sense, if ascertainable with 
 certainty or probability, must be ascertained by the 
 application of the ordinary laws of language and 
 the other rules of interpretation, or at least, and 
 even if it is discovered by supernatural light, it 
 must not be in contradiction to them, or overthrow 
 the sense which they establish with certainty. 
 
 This was not, indeed, Luther's doctrine. Dr. 
 Dorner, who is perhaps the ablest of modern 
 Lutheran theologians, and thoroughly conversant 
 with Luther's writings, has proved that the author of 
 Protestantism did not recognize any supreme au- 
 thority in the Holy Scripture. He held that the 
 light of faith is essentially the same with the light 
 of inspiration. The only difference between one 
 person enlightened by the Holy Spirit and any 
 
The Way of Salvation. 217 
 
 other person likewise enlightened, is in the degree 
 of illumination. Whoever perceives a greater de- 
 gree of light in another than in himself can receive 
 enlightenment from him ; but if he has a greater light 
 in himself, his own light dominates over the lesser 
 light. He had no scruple, therefore, in preferring 
 certain portions of the Scripture to others, correct- 
 ing some of the utterances of the sacred writers by 
 his own fancied inspiration, judging the Scripture 
 itself by his own subjective convictions, and even 
 rejecting or treating as of dubious value some entire 
 books, as the Epistle of St. James, on his own private 
 authority. Luther was very fond of the writings of 
 the German mystics, especially of one book by an 
 unknown author, called " Theologia Germanica," 
 which has been translated by Miss Winkworth, and 
 published with divers prefatory appendages by 
 Martin Luther, Charles Kingsley, Chevalier Bunsen, 
 and Professor Stowe, that afford a signal evidence 
 of the confusion and contradictions into which 
 Protestants are led by following their own private 
 spirit. Some of the writings of this mystic school 
 are heretical, and others, especially those of 
 Ruysbroeck and Tauler, are strictly orthodox. 
 The utmost that can be said in favor of the 
 " Theologia Germanica " is that it is possible 
 to give an orthodox sense to its ambiguous lan- 
 guage. Mystic theology is the* most sublime 
 
218 The Way of Salvation, 
 
 degree of knowledge attainable by man. It is very 
 dangerous, however, unless when controlled by a 
 fixed standard of orthodox doctrine and obedience 
 to authority. The special characteristic of this 
 mystic theology, not in Germany alone, or in the 
 fifteenth century, but everywhere and in all ages, is 
 that it deals with private illuminations and inspira- 
 tions of the Holy Spirit, and looks at divine truth 
 in an attitude of contemplation and spiritual intui- 
 tion quite different from the rational investigation 
 and penetration of scholastic theology. Therefore, 
 if the masters and teachers of a spiritual doctrine 
 like this are not thoroughly imbued with a sound 
 philosophical and theological learning, they may 
 easily go astray ; even without a wilful intention of 
 departing from orthodox doctrine ; or at least ex- 
 press themselves in such an inaccurate and ambigu- 
 ous manner as to make their writings dangerous; as 
 was the case with Eckhart and the author of " Theo- 
 logia Germanica." Moreover, restless, self-willed 
 persons, especially if they have a vivid imagination, 
 are liable to run into the greatest illusions and ex- 
 travagances if they happen to take a fancy to dabble 
 in mysticism. Now, Martin Luther was undoubt- 
 edly a genius. His nature was a rich and power- 
 ful one. But he was not a philosopher or a theolo- 
 gian. Neither was his moral nature well disciplined 
 and controlled. In the revolution of the sixteenth 
 
The Way of Salvation. 219 
 
 century he was like what Victor Hugo is now 
 in the revolution of the nineteenth century. 
 The mystic theology had an attraction for his 
 vivid imagination, because it presented before 
 him a vision of a certain elevation of his own in- 
 dividual mind and will which would emancipate 
 him from all authority, and give him a spiritual 
 dominion over others. His own ideas and purposes, 
 exalted into illuminations and inspirations of the 
 Holy Spirit, became, therefore, in his eyes, of divine 
 authority ; he was a godlike man, and commissioned 
 to renew and restore the work of Jesus Christ on 
 the earth. As for his theology and system of doc- 
 trine, it was ,no deliberate and consistent scheme, 
 worked out by thought and study, but the result of 
 accident and circumstances. He had but two fixed 
 and essential principles : one was the mystic unifica- 
 tion of the individual believer with Christ by faith 
 alone ; the other, which was a consequence of the 
 first, the complete independence of the justified 
 man of all external authority over his mind and 
 conscience. These are commonly called justifica- 
 tion by faith alone, and the right of private judg- 
 ment. Both are perversions of mysteries of the 
 faith which are specially brought out in the Catholic 
 mystical theology, viz., the union of the sanctified 
 human soul with Christ, and its interior guidance by 
 the light of the Holy Spirit. And they have sent 
 
220 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 men wandering away from the doctrine of Scrip- 
 ture, Tradition, and the Catholic Church in two dif- 
 ferent directions. One is the road of Christian or 
 philosophical mysticism. The other is the road of 
 Christian or anti-Christian and anti-Theistic ration- 
 alism. Those who retain the idea of union with 
 Christ as God in human nature slide into Christian 
 mysticism and pietism. Those who give up this 
 idea follow private judgment by reasoning on 
 natural principles, and become rationalists, neo- 
 logists, pantheists, materialists, each one according 
 to his own particular vagary. Germany, where 
 Luther lived, is the homestead and family mansion 
 of all these errors, and from thence they migrate to 
 other lands, destroying everywhere the remnants of 
 Christianity among the children of those who left 
 the church of their fathers in the sixteenth century. 
 The reverence for the authority of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, which was formerly so very great in the sects 
 founded by the authors of Protestantism, is at the 
 present time greatly shaken and diminished. It 
 still remains, however, as the strongest breakwater 
 against the rising and rushing stream of infidelity, 
 especially in England, Scotland, and the United 
 States. Among those whose traditional doctrine is 
 Calvinistic the influence of his dogmatic and sys- 
 tematic spirit has been powerfully efficacious in 
 preserving the habit of reverence for what is con- 
 
The Way of Salvation. 221 
 
 sidered as orthodox belief; and of tenacious adhe- 
 rence to fixed forms of teaching, confessions, creeds, 
 catechisms, standard expositions of doctrine, and 
 other ecclesiastical symbols, in which a common and 
 fixed doctrine is expressed, embodied, and distinctly 
 presented before each individual as the true doctrine 
 contained in Scripture, and obligatory on his con- 
 science ; because so clearly revealed by God that he 
 cannot reasonably and conscientiously deny or 
 doubt that it is revealed. The public teachers 
 and preachers of religion are therefore required to 
 conform to this fixed form of doctrine, and their 
 teaching is judged by it. Private persons are also 
 required to conform to it, as a condition of enjoying 
 the privileges of membership in the church. No 
 one is allowed to plead his own individual illumina- 
 tion by the Holy Spirit, or his own private interpre- 
 tation of the Scripture. On the contrary, he will be 
 told that the Holy Spirit has already made the 
 truth known, and that, if he is really enlightened 
 and inspired by divine grace, he will recognize that 
 truth. 
 
 As I am arguing directly only with those who 
 profess to be orthodox Christians in the sense just 
 explained, I am therefore justified in ruling out of 
 count any appeal to private, subjective persuasions 
 of individuals, and taking up singly and solely, 
 without reference to anything else, the infallible 
 
222 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 teaching of Jesus Christ as conveyed to the mind 
 of each one who is capable of receiving it, through 
 the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 The argument which I suppose my Presbyterian 
 friend to make is that he has an infallible Teacher, 
 the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who teaches him by 
 his written word, continued in the Old and New 
 Testaments, and that he has therefore no need of 
 any infallible teaching authority in the church. I 
 reply to this that his conclusion is an inference of 
 his own, a mere deduction which has no value ex- 
 cept its logical and rational value, and which is 
 therefore to be examined and judged by a merely 
 logical process. So far as the doctrine of the rule 
 of faith is a revealed doctrine, to be believed on the 
 veracity of God, it must be determined, according 
 to my friend's own principles, by the Scripture. 
 In like manner, everything relating to the church, 
 the sacraments, and all doctrines, must be deter- 
 mined by the same rule. All the doctrines of his 
 own sect, and all his own private opinions, must be 
 brought to the same criterion. Whatever, there- 
 fore, I have proved or can prove from the Scripture 
 he is bound to receive with an immediate and abso- 
 lute assent. It avails him nothing to plead that he 
 receives an infallible teaching from Jesus Christ di- 
 rectly through the written word, unless he can prove 
 that this infallible teaching certainly contains in it 
 
The Way of Salvation. 223 
 
 the whole of his proposition, viz., that the written 
 word is the sole and sufficient rule of faith, to the 
 exclusion of tradition and the authority of the 
 church. And if it can be proved that the Scripture 
 actually teaches the authority of tradition and the 
 church according to the Catholic doctrine, he is 
 forced to admit this by the determination of his own 
 rule of faith. This is not a mere argument ad ho- 
 minem, as it is called — that is, one which merely 
 proves to a man that a certain conclusion follows 
 from his own premises, without necessarily proving 
 that it is really true, because it follows logically 
 from premises which are true. If it were only an 
 argument of this kind, it would merely amount to a 
 proof that one who believes the Bible to be the in- 
 spired word of God must believe that the church 
 has supreme, unerring authority in faith, because 
 the Bible teaches this doctrine. It would not, how- 
 ever, by itself, establish the actual truth of the 
 proposition that the Catholic Church possesses this 
 authority. In order that this truth should be es- 
 tablished as a revealed truth by an argument from 
 Scripture, it must be proved or admitted as certain 
 that the person to whom this argument is addressed 
 has a sure basis for his belief that the Holy Scrip- 
 ture is really the inspired word of God, or contains 
 the revelation given originally to inspired men and 
 made known by the Son of God in person. Pro- 
 
224 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 testants are apt to suppose that a Catholic cannot 
 logically prove the church by the Bible, be- 
 cause, as they say, he must first prove the church 
 before he can appeal to the Bible as the word 
 of God, since it is on the authority of the church 
 that he believes it is the word of God. A 
 Catholic is generally suspected by an evangelical 
 Protestant to whom he proposes Scriptural argu- 
 ments of not arguing with him in perfect sincerity, 
 but using special pleading; as he is suspected by a 
 rationalist when he adduces arguments from pure 
 reason. But this is wholly a misunderstanding in 
 the case of those who, candidly and in good faith 
 cherish this suspicion. These persons of candor 
 and good faith are the only readers with whom I 
 think it worth the pains of arguing, and such read- 
 ers I am anxious to convince that all my reasoning 
 with them from the Holy Scripture and the ortho- 
 dox doctrines which they hold, is thoroughly in ear- 
 nest, and is presented as really based on a solid and 
 certain foundation. 
 
 This solid foundation is a well-grounded and 
 reasonable conviction, in the mind and conscience of 
 the persons supposed, that the Bible contains an au- 
 thentic declaration of revealed truths, and that cer- 
 tain doctrines specified in the beginning of this trea- 
 tise are among the number of these truths. This 
 conviction may exist, without an explicit knowledge 
 
The Way of Salvatioit. 225 
 
 of the infallibility of the church, without a distinct 
 recognition of that authority which really consti- 
 tutes the true Teaching Church, and, therefore, with- 
 out any conscious and formal act of the mind per- 
 ceiving that it receives the faith and the Holy 
 Scripture from the Catholic Church as the medium 
 and instrument of their transmission. The motives 
 of credibility prove sufficiently to convince any ra- 
 tional and upright mind the divine legation of 
 Moses and that of Jesus Christ. The genuineness 
 and authenticity of the books of the Old and New 
 Testaments are also established with certainty. This 
 human and historical faith in Christianity rests on a 
 better and stronger basis than any other common 
 belief which has ever gained a general assent by the 
 effect of moral evidence. Moreover, the doctrines 
 which the founders of the Christian Church taught 
 to their disciples, and which belong to the essence of 
 the pure and original Christianity, can, to a very 
 considerable and important extent, be learned di- 
 rectly from the writings they have left after them, 
 or proved with clearness and certainty from these 
 writings. It is not easy to determine precisely 
 how much of the Catholic faith and doctrine an 
 intelligent and upright heathen could perceive by 
 his natural reason alone to be certainly contained in, 
 and taught by, the Bible, if he should study it dili- 
 gently. It is enough for me, in arguing with an 
 
226 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 evangelical Protestant, and especially with a Presby- 
 terian, to state distinctly, as the common ground of 
 discussion between us, that the doctrines assumed as 
 granted by him in the beginning of this treatise, are 
 really taught in, and provable by, the Holy Scripture, 
 which is itself proved by external and internal 
 evidence to be a collection of authentic documents 
 of divine revelation. This is all that is strictly 
 necessary. For it is enough to show that the Jewish 
 religion is correctly represented in the Old Testa- 
 ment, and the Christian religion in the New Testa- 
 ment. Whatever, therefore, is proved by the Old 
 or New Testament to make a part of the religion 
 revealed by God, through Moses, the prophets, 
 Jesus Christ, and the apostles, must be believed as 
 a revealed truth, by force of the motives of credi- 
 bility which prove the divine legation of Moses 
 and of Jesus Christ. It is, therefore, true that my 
 Presbyterian friend has a human and rational faith 
 in Jesus Christ as an Infallible Teacher. It is also 
 true that he has a certainty of the unerring trans- 
 mission of the doctrines of this Infallible Teacher 
 through the apostles, and that in some things he 
 can be certain that the apostles have transmitted 
 particular truths, by the text of their writings. 
 
 This is enough for what is called the " preamble 
 of faith." That is, it will enable an intelligent and 
 upright person to convince himself very easily that 
 
The Way of Salvation, 227 
 
 the apostles in the name of Christ established the 
 Catholic Church, and left in it their own supreme 
 authority to the end of time ; and he will then re- 
 ceive with docile humility the entke faith from the 
 church, as the proximate rule of faith. Among 
 other articles of faith he will receive this one : that 
 the Holy Scripture, composed of a specified num- 
 ber of books, is the word of God, written by the 
 inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This is a quite dif- 
 ferent proposition from the one which precedes. 
 By the preceding proposition, it is historically and 
 rationally certain that the writings of the apostles 
 are authentic documents of the religion they were 
 commissioned to establish, and that they contain, 
 among other things, evidence of their having estab- 
 lished a certain ecclesiastical authority to last until 
 the end of time. By the second proposition, it is a 
 revealed truth that such and such books constitute 
 a sacred canon of Scripture, which was written by 
 the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and is the word 
 of God. I will here cite the definition of inspira- 
 tion given by Dr. Murray, professor of dogmatic 
 theology in the Royal College of Maynooth, in his 
 admirable Treatise on the Church. " I adopt the 
 definition of inspiration given by Marchini, and ap- 
 proved and sanctioned by Perrone, as in respect to 
 its substance altogether certain, viz., ' That special 
 impulse of the Holy Spirit moving the person to 
 
228 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 write, with a direction and presence governing his 
 mind and spirit while writing, which does not per- 
 mit him to err, and causes him to write those 
 things which God wills.' Therefore, that any 
 Scripture be inspired, it is requisite: (i) That the 
 writer be excited to write by the Holy Spirit ; (2) 
 that in writing he be not only kept exempt from 
 all error whatsoever ; but also (3), although inspira- 
 tion is not requisite to give him knowledge of things 
 which he already knows, since, by the very sup- 
 position, they are already known, there is requisite 
 a positive action on the mind of the writer, in re- 
 spect both to those things which are already known, 
 and those not before known, to make him write 
 them, so far as their substance is concerned, and in 
 the act of writing ; (4) what, in fact, is included 
 in the foregoing, that only those things which God 
 wills should be written, all other matters being 
 excluded." * The more orthodox Protestants have 
 generally held this doctrine of plenary inspiration, 
 and still hold it. I have all along taken this doc- 
 trine as granted by those I am specially addressing, 
 and I have, therefore, constantly cited the declara- 
 tions of Holy Scripture as not merely trustworthy 
 or even certainly unerring statements of that which 
 God has revealed, but as themselves the very word 
 of God. Now, before I conclude this treatise, I 
 * " De Eccl.," Vol. II., disp. xi. sect. i. § 22. 
 
The Way of Salvation. 229 
 
 shall furnish evidence that the doctrine thus as- 
 sumed as a divine truth, and admitted by those 
 whom I address, is really true because it is taught 
 by the church, and this evidence will therefore have 
 a retroactive effect upon the whole argument. 
 Nevertheless, I do not wish to content myself with 
 this, but to show also what is the real and deter- 
 mining motive of credibility which has preserved 
 such a deeply-rooted and general conviction among 
 Protestants, that the Scripture is, strictly speaking, 
 and in the Catholic sense, the inspired word of 
 God. 
 
 In the first place, it is certainly not any frequent 
 and distinct statements found in the Scriptures them- 
 selves. They do not contain any clear and explicit 
 rules for determining the canon, or explain the 
 specific difference of a canonical book which dis- 
 tinguishes it from a book which contains sound and 
 wholesome doctrine or true and edifying history, 
 though it is not canonical. There are some pas- 
 sages which imply the doctrine of plenary inspira- 
 tion, if that doctrine is already proved to be the 
 common belief at the time these passages were 
 written. There are also allusions in some canonical 
 books to others, as belonging to the Scripture. 
 This scanty and indirect proof is not, however, suf- 
 ficient to settle precisely the exact canon, or to de- 
 termine clearly, much less to make known at first 
 
230 The Way of Salvation, 
 
 hand, to an ordinary reader, the nature and extent 
 of the inspiration of that which is Holy Scripture as 
 such. 
 
 Let my Presbyterian friend ask himself why he 
 believed at the age of six or nine years with such an 
 undoubting assent that his Bible contained the 
 whole of inspired scripture, and nothing but inspired 
 scripture, truly inspired in such a sense that 
 God is its author. I have no doubt for myself 
 that in every case a child who is taught this 
 believes it simply because he is taught it by 
 his parents and religious instructors. If he be- 
 comes familiar with the Bible by frequently 
 hearing it read and by reading it, this belief is con- 
 firmed and strengthened by the internal evidence 
 which the sacred books give of themselves. When 
 the child grows up, and acquires a more extended 
 and explicit knowledge of the grounds of his re- 
 ligious belief, what is it which convinces his mind 
 that the books he was taught to regard as the in- 
 spired word of God are certainly genuine, authentic, 
 and inspired ? And if he is called upon to vindicate 
 and prove his belief, what argument will he adduce 
 as the most conclusive ? In a general way, un- 
 doubtedly, the internal evidence of the divine origin 
 and nature of the religion revealed through Moses 
 and Jesus Christ, and of the genuine, authentic 
 character of the documents of that religion, will con- 
 
The Way of Salvation. 231 
 
 vince him, and enable him to vindicate his convic- 
 tions. But for a precise, categorical proof that the 
 canon contains such and such books he will be forced 
 to recur to the authority of a universal and primitive 
 tradition. These books, and no others, he will say, 
 belong to the canon of the New Testament, because 
 the testimony of all competent witnesses, every- 
 where and always, proves that they, and they alone, 
 had the original sanction of the apostles. In re- 
 gard to the Old Testament, he will say the same 
 thing. And he will justly consider the concurrence 
 of the Jews with all Christians in respect to the 
 Hebrew Scriptures as an additional and irrefragable 
 proof of their authenticity. His ignorance of the 
 grounds on which the canonicity of the Hellenistic 
 books of the Old Testament rests does not invalidate 
 the soundness of his judgment respecting those 
 which are in the Hebrew canon. 
 
 In regard to inspiration, it is the same thing. 
 He knows that the founders of the Protestant sects 
 received their doctrine of inspiration from the 
 Catholic Church ; that the Eastern Christians hold 
 the same doctrine ; and that it is the orthodox tradi- 
 tion of the synagogue received from the old time 
 before the coming of Christ. In a word, he virtu- 
 ally recognizes the church, as established by Moses, 
 and reconstituted in its universal form by the 
 apostles, as the guardian and keeper of the Holy 
 
232 The Way of Salvation, 
 
 Scripture, and the witness to its integrity and in- 
 spiration, in this respect indefectible and preserved 
 from error by the special providence of God. 
 
 So far, then, he never finds any good reason 
 for rejecting or doubting the instruction of his pa- 
 rents and religious teachers, which is really the 
 instruction of the universal church reaching him 
 through the medium of their testimony. Although 
 he does not know that the church is infallible, yet 
 he is reasonably convinced that in this respect the 
 testimony of that whole body of Christians within 
 whose limits the true church must be somewhere 
 found does not and cannot deceive him. He has, 
 therefore, the revelation of God sufficiently proposed 
 to him in the Holy Scriptures, as the Written Word, 
 inspired by the Holy Ghost, and of course infallible, 
 in so far as the true sense of the Scripture is mani- 
 fest on the face of it, or capable of being deter- 
 mined with certainty by the means at his com- 
 mand. 
 
 Let us see, now, what value there is in his pre- 
 sumption that his own sect is the true church, or 
 a part of it, and really holds the essential doctrine 
 of Christ, and lawfully administers the sacraments, 
 because it is the channel through which the Holy 
 Scripture and certain doctrines manifestly pertaining 
 to the Christian faith have been transmitted to 
 him. That he must begin with this presumption, 
 
The Way of Salvation. 233 
 
 and is justified in following the teaching he has re- 
 ceived until he finds a grave reason for doubting it, 
 is manifest. But a presumption of this kind can 
 never shut out the right and obligation of paying 
 due attention to such a doubt, and of rejecting all 
 that part of the instruction one has received from 
 the sect of which he is a disciple, as soon as he has 
 a sufficient reason for doing so. 
 
 This presumption is very much weakened as 
 soon as he knows that his sect differs, in regard to 
 those things which belong to the very essence of 
 the church, of Christian doctrine, and of the sacra- 
 ments, from the great majority of professing Chris- 
 tians who receive the Holy Scripture as the inspired 
 word of God. Why should he presume that his 
 sect is right, to the exclusion of other Protestant 
 sects ? If he says that it is not exclusively right, 
 but that the pure church is composed of all these 
 sects together, why should he presume that they 
 are right in contradistinction to the Catholic and the 
 Eastern Churches ? It is not safe to act on a pre- 
 sumption that the sense of the Holy Scripture is 
 rightly understood by a certain number of indivi- 
 duals professing to follow private and individual 
 illumination from the Holy Spirit, when a much 
 larger number, in the present and during many fore- 
 going ages, hold a different or contrary sense. 
 Something more certain and decisive is necessary j 
 
234 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 that he may discern where the right is to be ascer- 
 tained with security to his conscience. For the 
 present he is thrown back upon himself, and oblig- 
 ed to make use of his own reason and judgment, 
 with what light he can obtain from God by prayer. 
 He must examine the pretence of his own church 
 to teach him the truth, and to give him the sacra- 
 ments. As soon as he begins to do this seriously, 
 this pretence will be found to have no warrant 
 whatever. It is in contradiction with itself. For, 
 on the one hand, as we have seen, and as a very 
 little reflection will show to any one, the doctrine 
 which he has learned has been given him by 
 instruction, and by practically following the 
 Catholic method of teaching by authority a cer- 
 tain sense of the Scripture which is positively 
 determined, and by which the text of the 
 same is interpreted and understood. On the 
 other, this sense is distinctly affirmed to be no- 
 thing more than the result of the agreement of a 
 number of persons in their own private judgment 
 of the meaning of Scripture, founded on their own 
 personal examination, and deriving its value from 
 the illumination which each one separately has re- 
 ceived from the Holy Spirit. Each one is re- 
 ferred to the Scripture, that he may receive the 
 truth directly and immediately from the inspired 
 word of God. The Presbyterian Church and the 
 
The Way of Salvation. 235 
 
 other sects existing among the disciples of Luther 
 and Calvin thus in the same breath claim and dis- 
 claim authority to teach, and betray in their uncer- 
 tain, inconsistent speech their utter want of any 
 legitimate possession of right to teach, as a person 
 of unsettled mind betrays his insanity by his in- 
 coherent conversation. 
 
 The serious Protestant enquirer may also very 
 easily perceive, from all the foregoing considerations 
 presented to him in this book, that the certain, in- 
 disputable truths of divine revelation which he has 
 learned through his teachers are just those which 
 they have merely transmitted to him from the an- 
 cient and universal tradition. Of themselves, they 
 give him nothing except the denial of all exterior 
 authority, and a mass of disputes in which they 
 have been engaged, after the manner of the rival 
 factions of Louisiana and Arkansas, and which on 
 their principles can never be settled. What is to 
 be done in such a case ? For the present the seri- 
 ous enquirer must continue to enquire and search 
 until he finds the true church. His own sect and 
 all the sects of the reformation of Luther refer him 
 to the Scriptures. All churches that can possibly 
 claim his attention recognize their authority and 
 appeal to it in support and proof of their own right. 
 Let him examine, then, with due rectitude of mind, 
 humility of heart, piety of intention, and diligence 
 
236 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 of search, what the Scriptures teach in such a way 
 that he can be sure of their true sense. The Lord 
 said to the Jews on one occasion : " Search the 
 Scriptures ; for in them ye think ye have eternal life, 
 and they are they which testify of me." Certainly, 
 the true church may say the same to all who believe 
 the Bible to be the inspired word of God. And, in 
 point ol fact, all that previous searching which I 
 suppose my reader to have made, and that which 
 he has made while reading this book, must have 
 brought him already very near to the discovery of 
 the true church. For not only have I shown that 
 the presumption in favor of any one or any collec- 
 tion among Protestant sects being the church or 
 any part of it, is without anything to sustain it ob- 
 jectively, but I have proved that these sects, so far 
 as they follow Lutheran or Calvinistic doctrine, sub- 
 vert and deny several doctrines of faith, and are 
 therefore heretical. Moreover, the whole course of 
 this argument has at least shown that there is a vio- 
 lent presumption in favor of the Catholic Church. 
 
 I will now proceed to prove directly from the 
 Scripture that there is and can be but one church, 
 which is the Catholic Church, founded by Jesus 
 Christ, and existing in unbroken continuity to the 
 end of time, as the only Way of Salvation for man- 
 kind. 
 
CHAPTER SIXTH. 
 
 The Nature, Attributes, and Organic Principles of the True 
 Church proved from Scripture — Proof that the Holy, Catho- 
 lic, Apostolic, Roman Church is the One True Church 
 founded by Jesus Christ — The Only Way of Salvation is in 
 the Catholic Church — Conclusion. 
 
 THE proposition to be proved in this chapter 
 includes two distinct parts : First, The 
 Scripture teaches that there is and can be but one 
 church, founded by Jesus Christ, and existing in 
 unbroken continuity to the end of time, as the only 
 Way of Salvation for all mankind. Second, the 
 Scripture teaches that the Catholic Church, or that 
 society which in its universal extension through 
 time and space exists in organic unity under the 
 monarchy of St. Peter and his successors, is the one 
 true church founded by Jesus Christ. 
 
 It is not necessary to prove the admitted fact that 
 Jesus Christ founded a visible church. What must 
 be proved is that he founded it in organic unity 
 and perpetual organic continuity, as the only Way 
 of Salvation, and therefore containing in itself all 
 the means of grace which conduce to salvation. 
 That the Son of God, before his incarnation, 
 founded the Jewish Church in organic unity and a 
 
 *37 
 
238 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 limited perpetuity — that is, to last until he came on 
 the earth in human form — is undoubted. It is there- 
 fore to be presumed that he founded the Christian 
 Church in organic unity and in a perpetuity with- 
 out limits, except those which bound time itself. 
 This presumption cannot be set aside, except by 
 showing that a church without perpetual organic 
 unity would be more perfect. I have shown, 
 however, in a former part of this volume, that 
 this cannot be true ; wherefore the presumption 
 stands, and is really an amply sufficient proof of the 
 thesis. I will add to it, however, not by any means 
 the whole positive proof, from express statements 
 of Scripture, but a sufficient quantity of it, premis- 
 ing that this presumption must rule the interpreta- 
 tion of texts, and determine their sense in favor of 
 organic, visible unity, when they are otherwise capa- 
 ble, or may be thought capable, of another sense. 
 
 The unity of organization and consequently of 
 government in the church is proved, in the first 
 place, from the names and titles given to it 
 everywhere throughout the Scripture." One of 
 these names is " body," clearly denoting the cor- 
 porate unity of the church. Robinson defines the 
 Greek word used in the New Testament in the pas- 
 sages referred to as signifying in its primary sense 
 
 * The author acknowledges his great obligation to Dr. Murray 
 (" De Ecclesia ") for the materials of this part of the present treatise. 
 
The Way of Salvation, 239 
 
 " an organized whole made up of parts and mem- 
 bers." As Cornelius a, Lapide (on Rom. xii. 4) 
 well remarks : " As in a body there are four proper- 
 ties ; first, corporeal unity ; second, diversity of mem- 
 bers; third, diversity of functions in the single 
 members ; fourth, aptitude and power in each mem- 
 ber for fulfilling its function ; so there is a precise 
 resemblance of all these things in the church and in 
 its individual members, to wit, the Christian faithful." 
 The church is, therefore, a corporation, which Web- 
 ster defines to be "a body politic or corporate, 
 formed and authorized by law to act as a single in- 
 dividual." 
 
 Another still more specific and significant name 
 is " kingdom." The Jews understood this in a lit- 
 eral sense. Whatever was false in their conception 
 Our Lord repeatedly and explicitly corrected. We 
 must, therefore, take their sense as correct in all 
 respects besides that one which he condemned. 
 Now, their error consisted altogether in the purely 
 temporal and political nature which they ascribed 
 to the kingdom of the Messias, with the conse- 
 quences following from this erroneous conception. 
 We must therefore regard the kingdom of Jesus 
 Christ as really and truly a monarchy, a visible soci- 
 ety of men bound together by laws and government ; 
 though a spiritual monarchy, having a superna- 
 tural end, distinct from civil society and supe- 
 
240 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 rior to it, according to the Catholic idea of the 
 church. 
 
 The other metaphorical names, "city," " house," 
 "temple," "sheepfold," •" mustard-seed " growing 
 up to a great tree with wide branches, denote unity 
 in a similar manner. But especially the holy and 
 tender names of " spouse " and " bride " given to 
 the church show that she is one and alone, and in- 
 dissolubly bound in sacramental union to Christ, all 
 others who claim the name being necessarily vile 
 impostors. " One is my dove, my perfect one." * 
 
 The context of the particular passages in which 
 these names of the church occur amplifies and illus- 
 trates the idea of unity in a manner which only a 
 separate treatise could exhibit with due clearness 
 and completeness. Let any one read the prophets 
 with this intention in view, and he will be overawed 
 by their incomparable splendor of language and im- 
 agery in describing the kingdom of God on earth, 
 the church of the Messias whose reign they foretold. 
 
 " Arise, shine ; for thy light is come, and the glory 
 of the Lord is risen upon thee. For, behold, 
 darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness 
 the people : but the Lord shall arise upon thee, 
 and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the 
 Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to 
 the brightness of thy rising. Lift up thine eyes 
 * Cant. v. 8. 
 
The Way of Salvation. 241 
 
 round about, and see : all they gather themselves 
 together, they come to thee : thy sons shall come 
 from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy 
 side. Then thou shalt see, and flow together, and 
 thine heart shall fear, and be enlarged ; because the 
 abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, 
 the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee. 
 The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dro- 
 medaries of Midian and Ephah ; all they from Sheba 
 shall come : they shall bring gold and incense ; 
 and they shall shew forth the praises of the Lord. 
 All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together 
 unto thee, the rams of Nebaioth shall minister unto 
 thee : they shall come up with acceptance on mine 
 altar, and I will glorify the house of my glory. 
 Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves 
 to their windows ? Surely the isles shall wait for 
 me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons 
 from far, their silver and their gold with them, unto 
 the name of the Lord thy God, and to the Holy 
 One of Israel, because he hath glorified thee. And 
 the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and 
 their kings shall minister unto thee : for in my wrath 
 I smote thee, but in my favor have I had mercy on 
 thee. Therefore thy gates shall be open continu- 
 ally ; they shall not be shut day nor night ; that 
 men may bring unto thee the forces of the Gentiles, 
 and that their kings may be brought. For the 
 
242 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall 
 perish ; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted. 
 The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir 
 tree, the pine tree, and the box together, to beautify 
 the place of my sanctuary ; and I will make the 
 place of my feet glorious. The sons also of them 
 that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee ; 
 and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves 
 down at the soles of thy feet ; and they shall call 
 thee, The city of the Lord, The Zion of the Holy 
 One of Israel. Whereas thou hast been forsaken 
 and hated, so that no man went through thee, I will 
 make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many 
 generations. Thou shalt also suck the milk of the 
 Gentiles, and shalt suck the breast of kings : and 
 thou shalt know that I the Lord am thy Saviour 
 and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob. For 
 brass I will bring gold, and for-iron I will bring sil- 
 ver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron : I will 
 also make thy officers peace, and thine exactors 
 righteousness. Violence shall no more be heard in 
 thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy bor- 
 ders ; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and 
 thy gates Praise. The sun shall be no more thy 
 light by day ; neither for brightness shall the 
 moon give light unto thee : but the Lord shall be 
 unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy 
 glory. Thy sun shall no more go down ; neither 
 
The Way of Salvation. 243 
 
 shall thy moon withdraw itself : for the Lord shall 
 be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy 
 mourning shall be ended. Thy people also shall be 
 all righteous : they shall inherit the land for ever, 
 the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, 
 that I may be glorified. A little one shall become 
 a thousand, and a small one a strong nation : I the 
 Lord will hasten it in his time." * 
 
 This one passage must suffice as a specimen of 
 the prophecies concerning the church. The apos- 
 tles express the same ideas in a calmer and more 
 didactic form in many parts of their epistles. For 
 instance, St. Paul, writing to the Ephesians, declares 
 that God raised Jesus from the dead, "and set him 
 at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far 
 above all principality, and power, and might, and do- 
 minion, and every name that is named, not only in 
 this world, but also in that which is to come : and 
 hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be 
 the head over all things to the church, which is his 
 body, the fulness of him that fillet h all in all." And 
 again : " Ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but 
 fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of 
 God ; and are built upon the foundation of the apos- 
 tles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief 
 corner-stone ; in whom all the building fitly framed 
 together growethunto a holy temple in the Lord."f 
 * Is. c. lx. f Eph. i. 20-23 I ii- 19-21. 
 
244 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 Our Lord himself declares that " there shall be one 
 fold and one shepherd " ; and he prayed with an 
 efficacious prayer, which no failure on the part of 
 man could prevent from being fulfilled, that the 
 apostles and their disciples for ever might be joined 
 in a unity similar to that of the Three Divine Per- 
 sons, which should give the church a glory like his 
 own, and be a manifest sign to all men of the reality 
 of his divine mission. M That they all may be one, 
 as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they 
 also may be one in us : that the world may believe 
 that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou 
 gavest me, I have given them ; that they may be 
 one, even as we are one." • 
 
 That there is and can be but one true church 
 is further proved by the denunciation of heresy, 
 schism, sects, and sectarian teachers in the New 
 Testament. M A man that is a heretic, after the 
 first and second admonition, reject ; knowing that 
 he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being con- 
 demned of himself." " But there were false pro- 
 phets also among the people, even as there shall be 
 false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in 
 damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that 
 bought them, and bring upon themselves swift de- 
 struction." " For such are false apostles, deceitful 
 w r orkers, transforming themselves into the apostles 
 * St. John x. 16 ; xvii. 21, 22. 
 
The Way of Salvation, 245 
 
 of Christ. And no marvel ; for Satan himself is 
 transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is 
 no great thing if his ministers also be transformed 
 as the ministers of righteousness ; whose end shall 
 be according to their works." * 
 
 It is evident that the faithful formed one commu- 
 nion during the apostolic age, and that those who 
 set themselves up as rivals to the apostles and to 
 the clergy of the apostolic communion, teaching a 
 different doctrine and making separate sects, were 
 denounced as impostors and ministers of Satan, 
 who led their followers to destruction, and -not to 
 salvation. And this leads me to the consideration 
 of the hierarchical constitution which Jesus Christ 
 gave to his church, and which was the law of its 
 external and visible unity. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to go over again the oft- 
 repeated argument of the apostolic commission given 
 by Our Lord to St. Peter and his associates. It is 
 plainly written in the Holy Scripture, where it can 
 be known and read of all men. No one of those 
 who have read and sincerely revere the New Testa- 
 ment will deny that the apostles were universal 
 governors and teachers of the church, and that the 
 one plain mark of the true church, in which the pure 
 word of God was preached, and the sacraments 
 rightly administered according to Christ's ordinance, 
 * Tit. iii. 10 ; 2 St. Peter ii. 1 ; 2 Cor. xi. 13-15. 
 
246 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 was, during the apostolic age, its submission to 
 apostolic rule and doctrine. St. John declares this 
 in express words : " We are of God : he that know- 
 eth God heareth us ; he that is not of God heareth 
 not us. Hereby knozv zue the spirit of truth, and the 
 spirit of error ." * The point which I wish to insist 
 on is that, by this apostolic commission, a perma- 
 nent hierarchical order was established, an Ecclesia 
 Docens, a Teaching Church, supreme and therefore 
 infallible as a proximate Rule of Faith, with the 
 other consequent and necessary powers of making 
 and enforcing laws, under whose obedience the only 
 way of salvation can alone be found. These two 
 essential principles of the constitution of the church 
 are most closely connected with, and involved in, 
 each other. A hierarchical order to which the 
 office of teaching and law-giving is committed by 
 divine authority, without any restriction or appeal 
 and which the faithful are bound unreservedly to 
 obey, must be secured from error so far as to pre- 
 vent its vitiating the doctrine and law of which it is 
 the authorized expositor and executive magistracy. 
 Under a dispensation like that of the universal 
 church, this security requires that it should be made 
 infallible in faith and morals. A permanent and 
 universal hierarchy cannot subsist without infalli- 
 bility. The converse of this is also true. An in- 
 * 1 St. John iv. 6. 
 
The Way of Salvation. 247 
 
 fallible authority cannot subsist in the church 
 without a hierarchical order. All the proofs from 
 the Scripture, therefore, for the one, are also proofs 
 of the other. These proofs are both clear and 
 abundant. 
 
 The Old Testament furnishes some which are 
 most striking. The prophet Isaias, describing the 
 Christian church, says : " A highway shall be there, 
 and a way, and it shall be called The way of holi- 
 ness ; the unclean shall not pass over it ; but it shall 
 be for those (it shall be for you a direct way — Vul- 
 gate), the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err 
 therein." Again: " O thou afflicted, tossed with 
 tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy 
 stones with fair colors, and lay thy foundations with 
 sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, 
 and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders 
 of pleasant stones. And all thv children shall be 
 taught of the Lord ; and great shall be the peace of 
 thy children. . . . No weapon that is formed 
 against thee shall prosper ; and every tongue that 
 shall rise against thee thou shalt condemn." * That 
 which the prophet sets forth with such splendor of 
 imagery St. Paul declares in plain, set terms, which, 
 though brief, are perfectly distinct and precise : 
 " These things write I unto thee, hoping to come 
 unto thee shortly : but if I tarry long, that thou 
 *Is. xxxv., liv. 
 
248 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself 
 in the house of God, which is the church of the liv- 
 ing God, the pillar and ground of the truth." * The 
 church is the royal and secure way of salvation, 
 teaching that faith and commanding those works by 
 which men must be saved, until the end of the 
 world. Therefore she has been established in a 
 perpetual order and an infallible permanence in 
 faith, as the necessary means of her indefectibility, 
 by the institution of her Founder. The instructions 
 by virtue of which the apostles were empowered to 
 lay the foundations of the indestructible edifice of 
 the church were given to them, specifically and mi- 
 nutely, by Our Lord, during the great forty days 
 which elapsed between Easter Sunday and the As- 
 cension : " being seen of them forty days, and speak- 
 ing of the things pertaining to the kingdom of 
 God."f Extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit 
 were also infused into them on the Day of Pente- 
 cost, by virtue of which they were enabled to re- 
 member and understand unerringly the verbal in- 
 structions received from the Lord, and were di- 
 rected in respect to all things requisite to the solid 
 foundation of the church. The constitution which 
 they gave to the church is the one which is by its 
 very nature perpetual and unalterable. It is a most 
 violent and gratuitous assumption, and one contrary 
 *i Tim. iii. 14, 15- f Acts i. 3. 
 
The Way of Salvation. 249 
 
 to all probability, that Our Lord should have estab- 
 lished a provisional and temporary constitution, 
 hierarchy, government, rule of faith, in the very be- 
 ginning of the universal church, to be succeeded 
 afterwards by institutions totally different. Those 
 who make it are bound to give explicit and clear 
 proof from the canonical scriptures of the New 
 Testament to justify their hypothesis, which they 
 ever have and ever must fail to do. I have proved 
 that the church which Christ founded was One ; it 
 was necessarily Catholic as soon as it was opened 
 to the Gentiles and they began to flock- into its pre- 
 cincts ; no one will question that it was Holy and 
 Apostolic. Because it was first established with 
 these four marks, it must continue to bear them to 
 the end of time. Apostolic in constitution and 
 government during its first epoch, that is, hierarch- 
 ical, with a subordination of its parts and members 
 to a supreme, infallible teaching and ruling authori- 
 ty ; apostolic, hierarchical, subject to sovereign au- 
 thority and jurisdiction over the mind and con- 
 science of individual members, in respect to faith 
 and morals, it must continue, to the end of the 
 world. Whatever relates solely to the first foun- 
 dation and institution of the church, its per- 
 petual laws, its sacraments, and other things 
 of like nature, which need to be done and 
 can be done but once for all, must, indeed, be 
 
250 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 regarded as a special, extraordinary, and transient 
 attribute of the apostolic office. But all that relates 
 to the exercise of powers and functions which in 
 their nature are continuous and perpetual must be 
 permanent, and the office itself must be as per- 
 manent as the end for which it was established. 
 The divine revelation once completed, there is no 
 further occasion for the gift of inspiration. The 
 essential order of the church, and the sacraments, 
 once established, the power given to this end ceases 
 of itself. The gifts of miracles, of speaking all lan- 
 guages, of prophecy, etc., their end being accom- 
 plished, cease to be the regular and invariable adjuncts 
 of the apostolic character. There are certain powers 
 which the first founders and authors of a divine 
 society must have as founders, and first in the line 
 of rulers, and which cannot be transmitted to their 
 successors even as attributes of supreme and sove- 
 reign power. The power of teaching and ruling is 
 one, however, in its nature continuous and perma- 
 nent. A hierarchical jurisdiction, so ordered as to 
 bind all the members of the body into one corporate 
 organization under one supreme authority, is of the 
 very essence of a church which has visible unity and 
 catholicity in all parts of the world, through all 
 time. This is evident in itself. But it is also ex- 
 plicitly and clearly declared in the New Testament. 
 Not only is the grant of authority to the apostles 
 
The Way of Salvation. 251 
 
 for founding the church expressly stated, but the 
 perpetuity of their office in a line of apostolic suc- 
 cession is just as expressly and distinctly declared, 
 as many learned and able authors have repeatedly 
 proved at great length and by the most unanswer- 
 able arguments, and as all Christians, except a very 
 small minority, have always and everywhere be- 
 lieved. There is no need to repeat these arguments 
 here. The words of the Holy Scripture are familiar 
 to all who read it. They are few, but they are clear 
 and emphatic. They tell us that Our Lord com- 
 manded the apostles to preach the Gospel in all the 
 world and to all men; to teach them the observance 
 of all the commandments they had received from 
 him ; to baptize them into the communion of the 
 church ; to bear the keys of the kingdom of heaven ; 
 to remit and retain sins ; and that he promised to 
 be with them always, to the end of the world. 
 Moreover, he likened their mission from himself 
 to his own mission from the Father, and declared 
 that to receive or reject, to hear or despise them, 
 would be equivalent to paying honor or manifesting 
 contempt toward his own royal and divine -Person. 
 It is evident, therefore, that the individual apostles 
 personally commissioned by Our Lord were not 
 endowed with a power merely personal, destined to 
 expire with them, but with one destined to survive 
 in a hierarchical order deriving its authority from 
 
252 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 them by lawful succession to the end of the 
 world. 
 
 Moreover, Our Lord made a specific and distinct 
 promise to send the Holy Spirit to teach the apos- 
 tles and their successors, to keep them in the truth, 
 and to enable them to fulfil their office as teachers 
 of all mankind to the end of the world. " I will 
 pray the Father, and he shall give you another 
 Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever ; 
 even the Spirit of truth ; whom the world cannot 
 receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth 
 him : but ye know him ; for he dwelleth with you, 
 and shall be in you. . . . 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." * 
 
 The pretence of sectarians to the illumination of 
 the Holy Spirit and the possession of the truth, and 
 all the illusions of false mysticism, of private, in- 
 terior light, of private judgment on the Scripture, 
 of immediate union with Christ apart from the 
 communion of the true church — the whole baseless, 
 shadowy fabric of Luther and Calvin is swept away 
 by these declarations of Scripture when correctly 
 explained and understood according to the ancient 
 tradition and doctrine of Catholic antiquity. It is 
 • St. John x\r. 16, 17, 26. 
 
The Way o£. ^Salvation. 253 
 
 to the church, and eminently to the teaching 
 church, the apostolic hierarchy, deriving its author- 
 ity and doctrine from the apostles, that the Holy 
 Spirit is promised and given, as a perpetual gift for 
 all ages; From the hands of this apostolic hierarchy 
 the canonical Scriptures are received, stamped with 
 a divine sanction as inspired writings, guarded, pre- 
 served, and authenticated, with their true sense and 
 exposition, and with the apostolic tradition which is 
 a supplementary and concurrent rule of faith. The 
 teaching of the apostolic hierarchy, derived from 
 Scripture and Tradition, and, by the perpetual assist- 
 ance of the Holy Spirit, unerring and infallible, is 
 the proximate and immediate rule of faith to all the 
 children of God in Christ. 
 
 What the true church, founded by Jesus Christ, 
 was, is therefore plain from the Holy Scripture. 
 Where it was, and which society is identical 
 with the original apostolic communion, is also mani- 
 fest from the New Testament. The Churches of 
 Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Ephesus, 
 Corinth, Smyrna, Crete, governed by the apostles 
 themselves and by St. Mark, St. Timothy, St. Titus, 
 St. Ignatius, St. Polycarp, and the other bishops es- 
 tablished by the apostles or their associates and 
 successors ; the churches warned, saluted, and 
 shown in prophetic vision by St. John the future 
 which was before them — these churches, bound to- 
 
254 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 gether in one universal church, are the church of 
 the New Testament. They make up the catholic 
 church of the primitive period, which appears indis- 
 tinctly in the scanty records of the ante-Nicene 
 writers, and bursts forth in glory at the Council of 
 Nice, when the sword of Constantine is seen glitter- 
 ing above that august assembly to protect the faith 
 proclaimed by their decree. This is the " One, 
 Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church " of the 
 Nicene Creed. 
 
 I have reserved what is by far the clearest, strong- 
 est, and most conclusive proof from the New Testa- 
 ment of the organic unity, hierarchical constitution, 
 sovereign and infallible authority, perpetual, un- 
 changeable continuity, of the true, Catholic Church 
 of Jesus Christ, until the last. 
 
 It has been already sufficiently proved that the 
 church was constituted in organic unity as a 
 body politic and a visible kingdom. It has also 
 been proved that a hierarchy, or sacred order of 
 spiritual rulers and judges, beginning with the apos- 
 tles, was established, which should be perpetual and 
 indefectible. This true, catholic church has been 
 identified with that grand, organized multitude of 
 Christian prelates, clergy, and people which existed 
 in historical continuity from the apostolic age to the 
 conversion of Constantine, and was represented in the 
 Oecumenical Council of Nice. Not only all commu- 
 
The Way of Salvation. 255 
 
 nions possessing or pretending to an episcopal suc- 
 cession in unbroken descent from the apostles, but 
 all others, called orthodox, recognize and acknow- 
 ledge this church of the first three centuries as the 
 Catholic Church, in contradistinction from all other 
 sects then existing. Its episcopal constitution, ad- 
 mitted as an undoubted historical fact in respect to 
 the period of the Nicene Council, is not, indeed, 
 admitted by Protestants generally as of apostolic in- 
 stitution. I have not dwelt at length on the proof 
 from the New Testament of the divine institution 
 and special powers of the order of bishops in the 
 church ; because I have a more direct and conclu- 
 sive line of argument before me, proving the essen- 
 tially episcopal constitution of distinct and local 
 churches as- involved in the essentially papal con- 
 stitution of the church catholic. I have proved 
 enough, however, in a general way, to make it evi- 
 dent that hierarchy and subordination must have 
 been established in the order of the clergy, and 
 a supreme power, like that which the apostles ex- 
 ercised, controlling the rulers and teachers of 
 particular portions of the flock, and keeping 
 them in unity of doctrine and discipline. I pro- 
 ceed now to prove that the organic unity of 
 the hierarchy and the church was constituted 
 in a monarchical regimen, or a sovereign authority 
 delegated to one supreme bishop, the Ruler, 
 
256 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 Teacher, and Judge of the whole Catholic 
 Church. 
 
 The very idea of the church, as one body politic, 
 extending over the whole world, demands this mo- 
 narchical regimen as the only constitution morally 
 sufficient and possible, except by a constantly 
 miraculous providence. The notion of independent 
 congregations, each one governing itself, destroys 
 the very conception of universal, corporate unity. 
 Corporate unity may exist in this way in small 
 bodies. But each one of them makes a separate 
 unit by itself. Independent dioceses, provinces, or 
 patriarchates likewise make separate though larger 
 units. Councils or courts composed of prelates, or 
 of representatives appointed in some fixed manner, 
 executing a supreme power, may to a certain extent 
 preserve a corporate unity within tolerably large 
 limits. This will be very precarious, however, 
 unless there is at least some presiding and adminis- 
 trative head. Mere Presbyterian or Episcopal 
 government is at best only fit to sustain national 
 churches. It is wholly unfit and inadequate for the 
 preservation of unity in the church catholic. The 
 church catholic, as a body, must have one head, as 
 a kingdom must have a sovereign. The hierarchi- 
 cal system, however well organized, with its metro- 
 politans, primates, and patriarchs, is an arch with- 
 out its keystone. It is liable to the disaster of 
 
The Way of Salvation. 257 
 
 separation, schism, divergence in doctrine and dis- 
 cipline, mutual hostility among its constituent parts. 
 As it is necessary that there should be pastors for 
 the distinct flocks of the fold of Christ, and chief 
 pastors over these, so there must be one supreme 
 pastor over the whole fold, all the shepherds and all 
 the sheep. There must be a power to govern 
 bishops, to judge them, to punish them, as well as a 
 power to rule over priests and people. No matter 
 how far the gradation of ranks among bishops is 
 carried ; if you subordinate suffragans to metropoli- 
 tans, metropolitans to primates, and all primates to 
 three or four patriarchs, the patriarchs themselves 
 must have a Supreme Bishop over them to govern 
 them, judge them, and, if necessary, to punish them. 
 IHs a mere evasion to pretend that the church 
 requires no visible, earthly head, because Our Lord 
 Jesus Christ is its head, its king, and its high-priest.. 
 He is the head, the ruler, the pastor, the priest of 
 every diocese and parish. He is the teacher of 
 every individual. He is the Word of God. God is 
 the Father of every baptized child. One might as 
 well say, then, that we need no pastors, no teachers, 
 no Bible, no parents ; as to say that the kingdom of 
 Christ needs no earthly sovereign. Our Lord is a 
 king who is invisible and inaccessible to men on the 
 earth in the ordinary and human way. Therefore 
 he cannot personally exercise his office as sovereign in 
 
258 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 an ordinary and human way. He can only exercise 
 it by a vicegerent, as an emperor governs a distant 
 and dependent kingdom. The royalty of Jesus 
 Christ as sovereign in the spiritual order, combining 
 the offices of prophet, priest, and king in one monar- 
 chical supremacy over the church militant on earth, 
 requires that he should have a representative, the 
 head of the hierarchy, from whom all inferior pre- 
 lates derive their authority, and who rules over all 
 the faithful through them, uniting all in one through 
 his own supremacy. The prophet Zacharias pointed 
 out Joshua, which in Greek is Jesus, the son of 
 Josedech the high-priest, as a type of this sacerdotal 
 royalty. " Then take silver and gold, and make 
 crowns, and set them upon the head of Joshua the 
 son of Josedech, the high-priest ; and speak unto him, 
 saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, 
 Behold the man whose name is The Branch ; and 
 he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build 
 the temple of the Lord : Even he shall build the 
 temple of the Lord ; and he shall bear the glory, 
 and shall sit and rule upon his throne ; and he 
 shall be a priest upon his throne. . . . And 
 the Lord shall be King over all the earth : in that 
 day shall there be one Lord, and his name 
 One." * 
 This prophecy most clearly designates the tem- 
 
 * Zach. vi. 11-13, xiv. 9. 
 
The Way of Salvation. 259 
 
 poral reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ over the Catho- 
 lic Church, his earthly kingdom. Invisibly, he 
 reigns over it from his throne in the heavens, at the 
 right hand of the Father. Visibly, he reigns by his 
 vicegerent, a visible priest -upon a visible throne, 
 ruling in the name and by the authority of Christ, 
 as his earthly Vicar. To this sublime position he 
 raised St. Peter, to whom he communicated plenary 
 powers, to be transmitted to his successors until the 
 end of time. "And I say also unto thee, that 
 thou art Peter (Rock), and upon this rock I will 
 build my church." The church is a kingdom, that 
 is, a state essentially constituted upon the monarchi- 
 cal principle. The monarchy of its rightful, perpet- 
 ual, divinely-appointed royal line is therefore its 
 foundation. The monarchical right and power 
 given to St. Peter occupy in the spiritual edifice of 
 the Catholic Church the same position which the 
 foundation has in a material building. The founda- 
 tion sustains, and, as it were, rules the whole edifice 
 — i.e., by its underlying strength, solidity, and sup- 
 port, it keeps the whole building in order and every 
 portion of it in its proper place, thus making it firm 
 and durable, preventing its sinking and toppling 
 over, and thus losing its structural form in a mass 
 of fragments. The foundation of a building is the 
 principle of its unity, repose, order, and durability. 
 The Rock on which the church is built is that which 
 
260 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 bears the same relation to the unity, order, and sta- 
 bility of the church during the whole period of its 
 existence and throughout its entire extent. It is 
 called a rock because that is the most solid and 
 immovable kind of foundation for a building, and 
 therefore fitly represents the unchangeable and im- 
 movable strength of the spiritual monarchy estab- 
 lished in Peter and his successors by Our Lord. 
 This monarchy must last, therefore, and be the sup- 
 port of the whole church, until the end of time. It 
 is more solid and durable than even the church it- 
 self which is indestructible, because it is the basis of 
 the indestructible durability of the church. It is so* 
 in its own nature, and by virtue of the admirable 
 constitution of its powers as a central, spiritual 
 sovereignty surrounded by a numerous, well-organ- 
 ized hierarchy and a vast Christendom, whose po- 
 litical order is subordinated to it, and forms its im- 
 pregnable bulwark. Its natural durability would not 
 be sufficient, however, without a superadded super- 
 natural strength and a special providence of God to 
 preserve it from being a subverted and overthrown. 
 The name given to the founder of this spiritual 
 monarchy, Peter, was given to him to denote that 
 his strength was received from Christ, and that the 
 foundation of the church in the See of Peter was 
 made like a base of rock by an act of his divine 
 power. His special, perpetual providence is prom- 
 
The Way of Salvation. 261 
 
 ised and pledged to it, unconditionally and in per- 
 petuity, to preserve it, and by it to preserve the 
 church, until the end of the world. " And the gates 
 of hell shall not prevail against it." This is a posi- 
 tive promise of unbroken, historical continuity to 
 that very same organized, visible society of which 
 St. Peter was the head, to the end of time. There- 
 fore it could never cease to be the true church, and 
 be succeeded by a new one, or a re-formed and re- 
 constructed one. It is a promise of indefectibility 
 in faith and morals, which requires and involves not 
 only a passive but an active inerrancy and infalli- 
 bility. It is a promise of perpetuity in unity of 
 organization, by the continued supremacy of the 
 successors of Peter over the church, and the subjec- 
 tion of the hierarchy and faithful of the catholic 
 church to their authority ; a promise of victory 
 over false religion, heresy, schism, infidelity, sin, 
 and all wicked assaults of civil potentates, dema- 
 gogues, or revolutionary parties. All these are 
 gates of hell. Against these gates the church, and 
 the foundation of the church ; the catholic multi- 
 tude of pastors and faithful, and the papacy ; are 
 made for ever impregnable by the almighty word 
 of Christ. The principle of the unity and invinci- 
 bility of the church is the supremacy of the succes- 
 sors of Peter. For the church is impregnable and 
 irreversible, precisely because it is founded on a 
 
262 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 Rock, and that rock is Peter — not in his individual 
 person abstracting from his office, but in his official 
 personality which never dies, being transmitted to 
 each one of his successors. Everything, therefore, 
 diffusively proved about the unity, infallibility, 
 perpetuity, hierarchical organization, and other 
 attributes of the church founded by Jesus Christ, 
 is concentrated and summed up in this one text : 
 " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build 
 my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
 against it." 
 
 " And I will give unto thee the keys of the king- 
 dom of heaven." This is another figure or symbol 
 of the delegation of supreme power in the church to 
 Peter. Among the principal nations of antiquity, 
 and particularly among the Hebrews, it was a re- 
 ceived usage that the tradition of the keys of the 
 gates of a citadel or city denoted the transfer of 
 dominion over the place itself. Keys made of 
 precious metal and richly ornamented were carried 
 by kings, princes, and magistrates as a symbol of 
 their dignity and authority. In the Hebrew mon- 
 archy the grand chancellor of the kingdom, who 
 was the king's vicar and representative, carried a 
 large key on his shoulder as his badge of office. In 
 Isaias (c. xxii.) the Lord says of Eliacim, the son 
 of the high-priest Helcias : " The key of the house 
 of David will I lay upon his shoulder ; so he shall 
 
The Way of Salvation. 263 
 
 open and none shall shut ; and he shall shut, and 
 none shall open." This is explained in the con- 
 text : " Go, get thee unto this treasurer, even unto 
 Shebna, which is over the house, and say, . . . 
 I will drive thee from thy station, . . . and I 
 will call my servant Eliacim, . . . and I will 
 commit thy government into his hand . . . and he 
 shall be for a glorious throne to his father's house." 
 In the Apocalypse the same emblem is used to 
 signify the royalty of Jesus Christ : " These things 
 saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath 
 the key of David, he that openeth, and no man 
 shutteth ; and shutteth, and no man openeth."* 
 Our Lord, as the lineal descendant of David, was 
 the lawful King of the Jews, which royal lineage was 
 typical of his inherent royalty as Son of God. 
 Therefore the key of David is taken as an emblem 
 of his sovereign dominion over the world. When 
 Christ promised to give his own keys, the keys of 
 his own spiritual kingdom, the symbols of his own 
 sovereign power, to St. Peter, he must have in- 
 tended to delegate his sovereignty to him, and to 
 constitute him his vicar, with a line of successors to 
 continue as long as his earthly kingdom should last. 
 " And whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be 
 bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on 
 earth shall be loosed in heaven." This is an unlimited 
 *Rev. iii. 7. 
 
264 The Way of Salvation: 
 
 and universal power of exercising jurisdiction as a 
 sovereign legislator, judge, and ruler, in the name of 
 God, by divine authority, and with the same obliga- 
 tion over the conscience that inheres in divine laws. 
 Under a more simple figure, having none of the 
 splendor and magnificence of royalty about it, but 
 yet equally expressive of the power of the sove- 
 reign pontificate given to Peter, and more pleasing 
 to the feelings, because it brings out more fully the 
 gentle, beneficent nature of the office of a chief 
 bishop and supreme pastor ; Our Lord, after his re- 
 surrection, confided the care of his church and his 
 people to his faithful, loving disciple, the predes- 
 tined bearer of his cross and crown. " Jesus saith 
 to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me 
 more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord ; 
 thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, 
 Feed my lambs. He saith to him again the second 
 time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me ? He 
 saith unto him, Yea, Lord thou knowest that I love 
 thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He 
 saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, 
 lovest thou me ? Peter was grieved because he 
 said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me ? And 
 he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things ; 
 thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto 
 him, Feed my sheep." * 
 
 * St. John xxi. 15-17. 
 
The Way of Salvation. 265 
 
 This passage, admirably translated as it is in the 
 quaint old English of King James's version, fails in 
 .one respect to reproduce the exact force of the 
 original terms. There are two Greek words in it, 
 which are both rendered by the term " feed." One 
 is " boske," which signifies leading to pasture and 
 providing with food. The other is " poimane," 
 which signifies watch, protect, govern. One desig- 
 nates the special office of the shepherd, which is a 
 type of the pastoral office in the church in respect 
 to teaching sound doctrine and morals, giving in- 
 struction and exhortation to the faithful, and pro- 
 viding them with sacraments and other wholesome 
 spiritual nutriment. The other designates that part 
 of the pastoral office which belongs to discipline, 
 government, and protection against enemies or other 
 dangers. In Homer and other ancient authors 
 kings are called the shepherds of the people, and 
 poimane is used to signify the exercise of the kingly 
 authority. Feeding the flock of Christ includes, 
 therefore, all that belongs to the episcopal office. 
 Feeding the whole flock of Christ denotes the 
 exercise of episcopal supervision over the Catholic 
 Church. There is a distinction made, also, between 
 the sheep and the lambs, indicating that those who 
 have a care over the lesser and weaker members of 
 the flock, and minister to their nourishment — that is, 
 the pastors and bishops, as well as the laity — are 
 
266 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 committed to the instruction and government of 
 Peter and his successors. He was made pastor over 
 all, bishops, clergy, and people ; all of whom, how- 
 ever high their ecclesiastical or civil rank and dig- 
 nity, kings, primates, and patriarchs, in relation to 
 the Supreme Pastor, are sheep of his flock and his 
 fold. He was made Bishop of bishops, Bishop of 
 the Catholic Church and all its parts and members, 
 which is thus made to constitute One Fold under 
 One Shepherd. 
 
 On another occasion, before his passion, Our Lord, 
 in more express and explicit terms, committed the 
 apostles themselves to his care, immediately after 
 he had, in the strongest language he ever used, desig- 
 nated the high and dignified position reserved for 
 them in conjunction with their chief in his kingdom. 
 He gave them first a lesson of humility, proposing 
 himself as an example of that virtue, and cautioning 
 them not to imitate the pride, haughtiness, and 
 domineering spirit usually seen in kings, princes, 
 and other persons of exalted rank. This special re- 
 commendation of humility shows that they were to 
 be placed in a position analogous to that of worldly 
 princes, in which they would be exposed to the 
 special temptations which beset the great and power- 
 ful. And he says expressly: "I appoint unto you 
 a kingdom, as my Father has appointed unto me." 
 Afterwards, speaking to Peter as the head of the 
 
The Way of Salvation. 267 
 
 apostolic band, "The Lord said, Simon, Simon, 
 behold, Satan hath desired to have you [plural], that 
 he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for 
 thee, that thy faith fail not ; and when thou are con- 
 verted, strengthen thy brethren."" The version of 
 St. Jerome translates this last clause, " et tu, ali- 
 quando conversus, confirma fratres tuos," which is 
 literally rendered by the Douay, " thou, being once 
 converted, confirm thy brethren." Some commen- 
 tators consider the Greek phrase, norh ETtiGrpitya?, 
 translated in the common English version, u when 
 thou art converted," as denoting the action of turning 
 towards the apostles like one who is addressing an 
 audience. Let this be as it may, the sense is plain 
 of the whole passage that the special prayer of 
 Christ for an efficacious act of providence and grace 
 to preserve the apostles from the wiles and assaults 
 of Satan was directed upon the person of their chief, 
 Peter. Through the special grace given to him, his 
 unfailing faith was to be the principal means of con- 
 firming his brethren. He was specially charged to 
 do this, and the words of Christ are equivalent to a 
 prophecy that he would keep this charge. The 
 sense is analogous to that of the other passage 
 in which the firmness of the rock on which the 
 church is built is set forth as the basis of its 
 impregnable resistance to the gates of hell. 
 
 * St. Luke xxii. 25-33. 
 
268 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 Literally, Peter and the other apostles are person- 
 ally the objects of Our Lord's warnings and pro- 
 mises. Everything, however, in the whole passage 
 and its context, has a much deeper and more strik- 
 ing significance, if it is principally referred to the 
 successors of Peter and the apostles. They have 
 had much more of worldly glory, have been much 
 more in danger of being perverted by pride, have 
 had more need to give heed to Our Lord's instruc- 
 tions respecting humility, have been much more 
 violently sifted by Satan, than were the lowly, per- 
 secuted, martyred apostles ; who were, moreover, 
 confirmed in grace, endowed with inspiration and 
 other miraculous gifts, and made so almost super- 
 human in virtue that there was scarcely any need 
 of any exercise of authority, or even of any counsel, 
 encouragement, or exhortation, on the part of St. 
 Peter. If we understand the " conversion " of St. 
 Peter to refer to his fall on the occasion of the well- 
 known events preceding the crucifixion of Our 
 Lord, we may understand that Our Lord intended 
 to hint to him beforehand, what he afterwards clear- 
 ly foretold, that he would make such a manifestation 
 of his own personal weakness as should clearly 
 prove all his subsequent firmness and fidelity to be 
 an effect of the grace of God. The stability of the 
 foundation of the church, the infallibility in faith of 
 the successors of Peter, is thus shown tobesuperna- 
 
The Way of Salvation. 269 
 
 tural, by the mournful exhibition of his own natural 
 weakness which the very Prince of the Apostles 
 left to all future times as a lesson of humility to the 
 greatest and holiest of the disciples of Christ. We 
 may apply the language of Christ also to those 
 among the successors of St. Peter who have sinned, 
 or have faltered through human weakness in the 
 discharge of their high duties. Repeatedly, in the 
 history of the church, has it been shown that, if the 
 welfare, and even the existence, of the church de- 
 pended solely on the personal fidelity of the Pope 
 to his sublime trust, both would be in danger. 
 Even the papacy has seemed at times to have been 
 preserved, and the rock of the church to have been 
 kept from being riven asunder, only by a miraculous 
 interposition. In the person of Peter Our Lord 
 addresses all his successors, and in the persons of 
 the apostles all the bishops, until the end of the world. 
 To the Popes he promises that although some of them 
 may be sinners, and others more or less fail to ful 
 fil their duty, their infallibility shall never be com- 
 promised by any defection from the faith ; and ad- 
 monishes them, whenever they have yielded, like 
 Peter, to human fear, and failed to face the powers 
 of earth and hell ranged in ferocious array against 
 Christ with due firmness and courage, like Peter to 
 repent and turn back with renewed heroism, to lead 
 on the champions of the faith and law of God to vie- 
 
270 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 tory. The bishops, and, by consequence, their clergy 
 and people also, are directed toward the indefectible, 
 infallible faith of the successors to Peter's suprem- 
 acy for confirmation in their own faith, when Satan 
 endeavors to sift them as wheat — that is, when 
 schism, heresy, and apostasy sift out faithless 
 bishops, priests, and people from the mass of the 
 faithful children of the true church. 
 
 It is only necessary to have some general know- 
 ledge of the history of Christendom to perceive 
 that Our Lord gave in a few words its epitome in 
 his address to the apostles and Peter which we are 
 now considering. This is true in general of all 
 church history, but especially of its most momentous 
 and critical epochs. The unfailing faith of the Suc- 
 cessors of Peter, who confirm their brethren in the 
 episcopate in the w T arfare against heresy and the 
 other hostile powers arrayed against them, and, 
 notwithstanding grievous defections among both 
 the hierarchy and the people, preserve the unity 
 of the church, and triumph successively over 
 all its enemies, is the one grand, salient ob- 
 ject which strikes our view. We see the fulfil- 
 ment of Our Lord's prediction and of his 
 prayer in the fact and the event, and, therefore, 
 we must conclude that he had before his eye as 
 future that which we see as past and present, and 
 that this was the object of his discourse. YVe may 
 
The Way of Salvation, 2 7 1 
 
 say the same of all that Our Lord, his prophets, and 
 his apostles have declared or foretold concerning the 
 church, its organization, its constitution, its attri- 
 butes, hierarchy, government, extension, glory, and 
 triumph. It is verified and fulfilled most evidently 
 and completely in the later and more developed 
 periods of the kingdom of Christ on the earth. 
 When an architect exhibits the plan and elevation of 
 a vast, magnificent cathedral, it is a representation 
 of the building in its finished state. We do not 
 look at the building when its foundations are just 
 laid, or its walls half-built, to see the realization 
 of the grand idea in the mind of the architect. 
 We look at the finished structure. If it corresponds 
 to the drawings made beforehand, we ascribe the 
 work to the architect as its author, and we judge 
 that the overseers and artisans employed in build- 
 ing have faithfully executed his design. Just so in 
 the present case. The Holy Scriptures give us 
 plans and pictures of the grand temple of God, the 
 Catholic Church. The scanty historical records of 
 inspired and uninspired writers respecting the first 
 beginnings of Christianity give us only partial 
 glimpses of its inchoate state, when the ground was 
 surveyed and cleared, the materials collected, the 
 foundations laid, the building commenced. A care- 
 ful inspection will show the fundamental principles 
 of faith, worship, order, and government, the dis- 
 
272 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 tinctive and ruling idea, the outlines of the plan, as 
 prescribed by the divine Architect and Founder of 
 the church. But we must look to the period of the 
 greatest extension, power, and splendor of the 
 church, in order to behold the actual realization of 
 the divine plan in its completeness. A comparison 
 of the real, actual church with the plan of it laid 
 down in the Holy Scripture, showing an obvious, 
 striking agreement between the two, is the quickest 
 and clearest exhibition of the identity of the Catho- 
 lic Church of history and of the present time with 
 the church founded by Jesus Christ and builded'by 
 the apostles and their successors in the primitive 
 ages. 
 
 I have already shown from the prophets, and' from 
 the apostles and evangelists, partly speaking as they 
 were personally taught by the Son of God, and 
 reciting his own words, and partly giving utterance 
 to what he taught them by his Holy Spirit, what 
 the principles, attributes, and outward notes of the 
 true church of God, as the kingdom of Christ on 
 earth, really are, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures. 
 This has been done with the intention of pointing 
 out to the sincere believer in the Holy Scriptures 
 the true Way of Salvation in the true church. I 
 have nothing more to do now than to point to the 
 grand, historical, Catholic Church, of Nice, Chalce- 
 don, Florence, Trent, and the Vatican ; the church 
 
The Way of Salvation. 273 
 
 now and always united as a well-organized body 
 politic and kingdom under the supremacy of 
 the Successor of Peter, and to say : See there ! the 
 kingdom of God foretold by Isaias, founded by 
 Jesus Christ on the Rock of Peter, against which 
 the gates of hell have never prevailed, and shall 
 never prevail. In the great church of the Fathers 
 and Councils, the church of the fourth and fifth cen- 
 turies ; in the church of the thirteenth century and 
 the whole mediaeval period ; and in no other, can we 
 find any adequate fulfilment of the superb and glow- 
 ing descriptions of the kingdom of God given by 
 Isaias and the other prophets. I have known plain 
 people, brought up Presbyterians in the remote parts 
 of New England, to be struck with this obvious 
 parallel, merely by reading attentively the prophets 
 and some popular histories written in English. The 
 great Christendom, with its wonderful civilization 
 and political order, proceeding from, and governed 
 by, the spiritual order, under the universal and be- 
 neficent monarchy of the Pope, which arose on the 
 ruins of the great precedent empires, and is just now 
 going to pieces, is the only fact which presents even 
 an appearance of a reign of Christ and the saints 
 on the earth. What can the Rock of Peter be, ex- 
 cept the Roman Church ? The whole history of 
 that church, and of the entire catholic communion 
 under its supremacy, is an illustration and fulfilment 
 
274 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 of the words of Christ : " On this Rock I will build 
 my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
 against it." Its history since the great churches of 
 the East finally went down and the great apostasy 
 in the West took place, and its present attitude since 
 the Council of the Vatican was assembled, are only 
 more palpable and wonderful illustrations of the 
 same divine prophecy. Let the devout adorer of 
 Jesus Christ, who believes that his word is the word 
 of God, attentively consider that word which he 
 spoke to Peter, and look upon the church which is 
 at this day governed by the Successor of Peter, and 
 ask his conscience if he can refuse to acknowledge 
 the holy, catholic, apostolic, Roman Church as the 
 one, true church founded by Jesus Christ, and its 
 supreme head as his Vicar. 
 
 The obligation of obedience to the Catholic Church, 
 and the necessity of being in her communion and 
 receiving the sacraments from her lawful ministers, 
 in order to be justified and saved, follow from the 
 simple fact that she is the true and only church es- 
 tablished by Jesus Christ. This ought to be so plain 
 to any one who has followed the steps of my argument 
 as to require no further proof, nor even one word of 
 remark. Nevertheless, those who are brought up 
 under the influence of Lutheran and Calvinistic doc- 
 trines find it very hard to see into the vital impor- 
 tance of the question of the true church, or to un- 
 
The Way of Salvation. 275 
 
 derstancl the obligation and necessity of being a 
 member of that church when it is once ascertained. 
 The reason is that they have always believed that 
 justification and salvation are purely individual 
 matters between the soul of each one and God, 
 which are settled without the mediation of any 
 church, or priest, or any kind of human intervention. 
 The visible church becomes therefore, for them, only 
 a useful institution for keeping up common worship, 
 providing for public instruction, carrying on bene- 
 volent works, and in general promoting religious 
 and moral improvement. Quite naturally, having 
 this notion of the church, they say that they can- 
 not see how the particular form of church gov- 
 ernment, the mode of ordination, or the ceremo- 
 nies of worship can be of essential and vital 
 importance to salvation. They may admit the 
 importance of harmony, co-operation, and union 
 in a general sense among Christians. But they do 
 not admit that it is necessary for all who are true 
 Christians to be members of one true church which 
 is exclusive in its organization. They speak about 
 different ways leading to the same term, varieties 
 of form which do not belong to the essence of reli- 
 gion, and in many other ways show that they look 
 on the church and all else that is visible and incor- 
 porate in Christianity as something merely exterior 
 and indifferent, having no vital and essential rela- 
 
276 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 tion to the interior and spiritual part For this 
 class of persons the arguments which are sufficient 
 to a high-churchman are wholly deficient and ineffi- 
 cacious. These arguments usually presuppose an 
 idea which is wanting in the doctrine of the Calvin- 
 istic sects. They are constructed with a view to 
 prove from Scripture and history the external con- 
 stitution of the church. The question is about the 
 orders of the hierarchy, the authority of bishops, 
 councils, the Roman primacy, etc., just as in civil 
 matters the origin and nature of imperial, royal, 
 aristocratic, and republican governments are dis- 
 cussed. The external side of the church, as the 
 kingdom of Christ on earth, its power and glory, 
 its humanizing and civilizing influences, its splendor 
 of science and art, the wisdom of its jurisprudence, 
 and other things similar to these, are made promi- 
 nent. These are all very important and interesting 
 matters. Yet there are many Protestants in these 
 later times who can more or less appreciate and ad- 
 mire them, make a very just estimate of the Catho- 
 lic Church in the past ages, and even look forward 
 to some new epoch in which all Christians will in 
 some way come together and carry on the work of 
 the past through the future, without ever thinking 
 of really embracing the Catholic faith and commu- 
 nion. Such a man was Leibnitz, and such are 
 
The Way of Salvation. 277 
 
 Guizot and Leo now,* besides a multitude of 
 others, who stand around the walls of the city of 
 God, admire them, and yet think they are quite 
 safe in their own little villages where they were 
 born and brought up. 
 
 The serious and pious reader of these pages will 
 therefore please to reflect that I have throughout 
 only so far touched on the outward part of the 
 church as the exigency of my great topic required, 
 which was the way of interior justification and eter- 
 nal salvation in and through the soul of the church, 
 its spiritual and principal part, of which the visible 
 hierarchy and sacraments are the organs and instru- 
 ments. Let him reflect on the whole course of 
 thought and argument which I have pursued, and he 
 will see that I have refuted the primary falsehood of 
 Luther and Calvin, that each man is justified imme- 
 diately and at once by a private and personal rela- 
 tion which is established between himself and Christ. 
 I have proved that the relation between Christ and 
 men, as Redeemer and redeemed, is generic, not in- 
 dividual ; and is initial only, not complete, until 
 certain conditions have been verified. I have also 
 proved that this relation, generic in its inchoate, 
 initial state, is generic in its actual and complete 
 form — that is, that it produces an organic society, 
 superseding the one first instituted, into which the in- 
 * This was written before the death of Guizot. 
 
278 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 dividual members are introduced by regeneration. I 
 have proved that faith is the first personal condition 
 and prerequisite for regeneration, and that this faith 
 presupposes an official, authoritative, and infallible 
 teaching of divine truths by the hierarchy of the 
 church ; also, that obedience to the law of God, 
 as promulgated, explained, and applied by the same 
 authority, is another obligatory condition of obtain- 
 ing, preserving, and increasing justification ; that 
 one part of this law requires that the regenerate 
 man, having received regeneration through the sa- 
 crament of baptism, should obtain remission of sin 
 and other graces through sacraments lawfully ad- 
 ministered in the church. The conditions of justi- 
 fication, therefore, absolutely require that one 
 should obey the authority of the Catholic Church 
 lodged in the hands of the Vicar of Christ, and the 
 bishops whose jurisdiction is derived from his su- 
 preme power. The very first condition is faith, and 
 faith demands a submission of the mind and will to 
 all that the church commands, in the name of God, 
 the faithful to believe. The church teaches and 
 commands through her hierarchy. The head of the 
 hierarchy is the Pope, the supreme teacher and 
 lawgiver who succeeds to the supremacy given by 
 Christ to Peter. The catechumen must therefore 
 learn from him, through his own particular instruc- 
 tor, what are the things necessary to salvation. 
 
The Way of Salvation. 279 
 
 When Christ gave to Peter and his successors su- 
 preme power to teach and command, he imposed 
 on all who know that this power was given a cor- 
 responding obligation to believe and obey. The 
 Vicar of Jesus Christ teaches the catechumen at the 
 very outset that he must . receive baptism from no 
 other person but a priest authorized by him, under 
 the penalty of grievous sin and sacrilege. By the very 
 fact of baptism he becomes the subject of the lawful 
 pastors who are authorized by the Supreme Pastor, 
 and much more of the Supreme Pastor himself. 
 This subjection is perpetual, and revolt from it 
 separates the rebel from the church. Once bap- 
 tized, he must keep the precepts of the church, and 
 receive the sacraments from her lawful and autho- 
 rized ministers. If he communicates with heretics 
 and schismatics, he incurs at once the guilt of mortal 
 sin, the penalty of excommunication, and thereby 
 exclusion from the kingdom of heaven, whose keys 
 are in the hand of the Successor of St. Peter. It 
 does not alter the case at all if the pastors whom he 
 follows have received personally, or through their 
 predecessors, priestly or episcopal ordination from 
 Catholic bishops. Their assemblies, their worship, 
 their administration of sacraments, are unlawful 
 and sacrilegious. The Vicar of Christ is the su- 
 preme judge, whose judgments are ratified in hea- 
 ven. It is for him to decide which are the lawful 
 
2 So The Way of Salvation. 
 
 bishops, and which particular churches are parts of 
 \ the true Catholic Church. He condemns all here- 
 tics and schismatics, all who are not of the holy, 
 catholic, apostolic, Roman Church, whether they 
 have valid orders or not. It is, therefore, obligatory 
 and necessary for the catechumen who knows which 
 the true church is, not only to receive baptism, but to 
 receive it from a Catholic priest ; to receive, likewise, 
 instruction, remission of sins in the sacrament of 
 penance, holy communion, and the other sacra- 
 ments, not only from one who is really a priest or 
 bishop, but from one who has lawful jurisdiction in 
 the Catholic Church. 
 
 If a person has received baptism, either with or 
 without any fault of his own, from a minister who is 
 not authorized by the church, and if he is a member 
 of a sect, whether it be a schismatical body like the 
 so-called Greek Church, or any of the heretical sects 
 of Protestantism, he is, nevertheless, by his baptism 
 a lawful subject of the Catholic Church. If he be in- 
 nocent of any wilful fault in the matter, he is a lamb 
 of the flock committed by Christ to Peter, astray 
 from the true fold. When he finds out his error, he is 
 bound to return immediately to his true and lawful 
 pastor. If he has strayed away by his own fault, or 
 if he persists in staying out after he has discovered 
 his error, he is a rebel, and is bound to repent and 
 return to obedience, as the only condition of salva- 
 
The Way of Salvation. 281 
 
 lion. All the baptized are already the subjects of 
 the Vicar of Christ, and all the unbaptized are 
 bound to receive baptism and become his subjects. 
 This follows necessarily from what I have proved ; 
 that Christ has established his church under the 
 form of a visible kingdom subject to the supremacy 
 of St. Peter and his successors, as the Way of Salva- 
 tion, the King's Highway leading to heaven ; and 
 has commanded all mankind to enter into it, and to 
 walk in it to everlasting life. 
 
 There are some persons who put aside all the evi- 
 dence of the divine authority of the Catholic 
 Church, and close their ears to all persuasion to 
 obey the commandment of Christ by entering into 
 his true fold, in some such way as the following. 
 They say : " My mother was a good, holy woman ; 
 therefore the religion in which she lived and died 
 is good enough for me." This might be a sensible 
 reason for one who could not find anything better 
 or more certain to go by. But it is utterly senseless 
 and absurd when it is used as an argument where- 
 with to break the force of evidence and shut out 
 the light of divine truth. Do such persons believe 
 that there is any revealed doctrine and any law 
 which all men are bound to believe and obey, when 
 they know them ? Do they think that they alone 
 have had good mothers ? Such reasoning would 
 prevent every person whose parents were virtuous, 
 
282 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 or who saw that there were virtuous and good people 
 in the religion he had been bred up in, from admit- 
 ting any evidence, however conclusive, that the re- 
 ligion of his fathers is defective or erroneous. It 
 seems ridiculous to take serious notice of such a 
 frivolous and absurd notion. Yet I have heard 
 it gravely proposed, not only by simple and unedu- 
 cated people, but by the most intelligent persons. 
 Therefore it is that I take the trouble to answer it 
 seriously. Surely, my dear friend, you must see 
 that it is foolish and impious for you to make any 
 reply or objection whatever to a commandment of 
 your Sovereign Lord, Jesus Christ. Who are you, 
 and who are your parents, or all those men who 
 seem to you most worthy of respect and honor, in 
 comparison with Him ? Will you set their opinions 
 against his declaration, or their seeming goodness 
 against his sanctity, and follow their footsteps as 
 more secure marks of the true way than the direc- 
 tions which he has given you ? The truth of the 
 divine revelation is absolutely certain ; and to one 
 who has divine faith it is above any natural truth 
 whatever, excluding all fear or possibility of error, and 
 resting on the veracity of God himself. The opin- 
 ion which one may have of the holiness and the eter- 
 nal salvation of particular persons is not by any means 
 so certain. Let us suppose, however, that those 
 parents or other persons whose memory you revere 
 
The Way of Salvation. 283 
 
 so much were really holy and are now in heaven. 
 If they were holy, they would have submitted to 
 the authority of the true church, in case it had been 
 sufficiently proposed to them, if they had been true 
 to the ruling principle of their lives; that is, to obey 
 God when his will was made known to them. If 
 they are in heaven, they know that the Catholic 
 Church is the true church, they are members of it 
 in the triumphant state of glory; and if they were 
 allowed to speak to you, they would tell you to 
 become members of the same church militant on 
 earth. Because certain persons have been all their 
 lives outside of the visible communion of the true 
 church without any fault of their own, it does not 
 follow that you can remain outside without fault. 
 Some persons are ignorant of the divinity of Jesus 
 Christ, or even of his existence. They are, there- 
 fore, not to blame for their want of explicit faith in 
 him. But if you do not believe in him and in his 
 words, you are guilty of sin, and will be condemned 
 to eternal punishment, unless you repent and be- 
 ♦ lieve. Supposing that some persons who have 
 never had explicit faith in the Catholic Church, or 
 made explicit profession of obedience to her author- 
 ity, may have been saved by an implicit faith and 
 by obedience to that part of the divine law which 
 was known to them, yet this does not help those 
 who refuse to believe and obey the church by their 
 
284 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 own wilfulness. Whoever is saved is saved by faith 
 and the love of God, and is united to the soul of 
 the church by sanctifying grace. But no one can 
 have faith who refuses to believe any one doctrine 
 of the faith which is sufficiently proposed to him. 
 No one can have the love of God who disobeys one 
 of his commandments which has been made known 
 to him. No one can receive sanctifying grace 
 through any other channel than the sacrament of 
 baptism lawfully administered in the church ; or 
 preserve it unless he receives the other sacraments, 
 keeps the precepts of the church, and remains in her 
 communion as a docile and obedient child ; if he 
 knows which is the true church, and who is the true 
 pastor commissioned by Jesus Christ, and has the 
 opportunity and the ability to approach those 
 sacraments which Christ has instituted as the only 
 ordinary means of grace and salvation. Supposing, 
 therefore, that you have dear friends in heaven, 
 who have been saved by extraordinary grace ; your 
 only hope of rejoining them hereafter is bound to 
 the condition that you use faithfully the ordinary 
 and appointed means which God has placed in the 
 one, true church. Perhaps the mother of St. 
 Paul was saved and met him in heaven, though 
 it is most likely that she never explicitly believed 
 in Jesus as the true Messias or received the sacra- 
 ment of baptism. Yet St. Paul would have 
 
The Way of Salvation, 285 
 
 been damned if he had not believed and been bap- 
 tized. 
 
 The same objection, in another form, is only re- 
 peated when persons fall back on their own experi- 
 ence. They have found what their souls need, they 
 say, in the religion they have been brought up in. 
 They believe in Jesus Christ, find comfort in the 
 Bible and in prayer, profit in sermons and spiritual 
 books, have a conscience at rest and a hope of being 
 saved. What more do they need or can they wish 
 for ? Why is it so necessary to be received into an- 
 other church, even if it be a grand and admirable 
 church, quite sufficient for those who are bred up in 
 it or who prefer to join it ? The answer is nearly 
 the same as the one just given. Granted, that you 
 have heretofore believed with sincerity what you 
 have been taught, that you have lived up to your 
 light, that you have received many graces ; what 
 then ? Is the evidence I have given of the exclu- 
 sive right of the Catholic Church to your obedience 
 conclusive ? If it is — and it is, most assuredly — you 
 have received now a new light, and incurred a new 
 obligation. If Our Lord should personally appear 
 to you, and command you to believe all the church 
 teaches and fulfil all she commands, as the indispen- 
 sable condition of salvation, would you dare to hesi- 
 tate and make objections on the ground I have 
 mentioned ? Jesus Christ speaks to you from heaven 
 
286 The Way of Salvation, 
 
 through his word, through his church, through the 
 bishops and the Supreme Pastor of the church, the 
 successors of the apostles and St. Peter. " See that 
 you refuse not him that speaketh. For if they es- 
 caped not who refused him that spake on earth, 
 much more shall not we escape, if we turn aivay from 
 him that speaketh from heaven." * " He who saith 
 that he knovveth him, and keepeth not his command- 
 ments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." f If 
 the truth has been in you heretofore, and even if you 
 have lived without any grievous sin until now, the 
 truth will depart from you, you will become false, 
 and you will incur the guilt of mortal sin, whose 
 penalty is eternal condemnation, unless you obey 
 the truth now presented to you, and proved by the 
 Scripture which you profess to revere. Do you not 
 know that Our Lord has commanded you to hear 
 and obey those whom he has sent, as himself; that 
 he has said that those who hear them hear him, and 
 those who despise them despise him and the Father 
 who sent him ? I have proved to you that the Ca- 
 tholic bishops are sent by Christ ; that the Successor 
 of St. Peter is the Vicar of Christ upon earth ; that 
 the keys of the kingdom of heaven and supreme 
 power of teaching and ruling are in his hands. 
 Therefore, if you refuse to believe his teaching and 
 obey his authority, and to come into his fold under 
 
 * Hebrews xii. 25. J r Epistle St. John ii. 4. 
 
The Way of Salvation. 287 
 
 the pastors whom he has appointed, you reject, de- 
 spise, and disobey Christ and God. 
 
 As for those who say right out that all religions 
 are alike, that all persons cannot have the same re- 
 ligion, that it is no matter what a person believes, I 
 cannot, stop, at present, to reason with them. It is 
 incredible that sensible persons can utter such non- 
 sense. Plainly, they can make no pretence of being 
 Christians at all. It is therefore useless to prove to 
 them what true Christianity is, and what Christ 
 teaches and commands. They are sceptics, like 
 Pontius Pilate, and repeat his sceptical question, 
 " What is truth ? " Such persons need a different 
 treatment from that which is suitable for the class 
 of readers I have at present in view. For these, it 
 is sufficient to show what the Holy Scriptures teach, 
 or what may be proved by them, if they are consis- 
 tent and upright in their profession of belief in.them. 
 It is this perfect sincerity and uprightness which is 
 chiefly requisite, in order that one who has the evi- 
 dence of the Catholic religion proposed to him may 
 be convinced by it, and act on his conviction. Fidel- 
 ity to the light of reason, to the glimmerings of 
 divine illumination, to the voice of conscience ; 
 earnestness in obeying the will of God and seeking 
 for the salvation of the soul ; are the great requisites 
 for obtaining the full and clear light of faith and the 
 efficacious grace which brings the enquirer into the 
 
288 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 royal road of salvation. Unhappily, they are too 
 often wanting. Reason is silenced, the inspirations 
 of grace are resisted, conscience is stifled, because 
 prejudice, old habits and associations, worldly in- 
 terests, human affections, moral cowardice, the fear 
 of making sacrifices, are arrayed against them, and 
 bind the captive soul in a willing bondage under the 
 accustomed dominion of its old errors. Therefore 
 many who are not far from the kingdom of God 
 never enter into it. Converts to the Catholic 
 Church have been numerous in these latter days, 
 but the number of those who have felt the. first mo- 
 tions of the grace of conversion, and have drawn 
 back, is much greater. It is easy to see that their 
 great obstacle has not been a want of sufficient light 
 to see the truth, or a lack of evidence to convince 
 the intellect, but a want of sincerity and moral 
 courage to rise up, leave all worldly interests behind 
 them, and follow Christ in the way of the cross. 
 The strength and durability of Protestantism, at the 
 present time, do not so much consist in the posi- 
 tive conviction of its adherents that their particular 
 sects possess the pure and perfect doctrines and in- 
 stitutions of the primitive and apostolic Christian- 
 ity, as in the political and social interests and tem- 
 poral goods with which it is interwoven. It has 
 made to itself a domain and kingdom after the 
 semblance of the Catholic Church. It has its 
 
The Way of Salvation. 289 
 
 antiquity, its traditions, its heroes, historical as- 
 sociations, universities, literature, sacred burial- 
 places, great benevolent institutions, vast wealth, 
 and a multitude of places where studious and 
 quiet men find a pleasant employment and a 
 respectable living. Wherever it is dominant, those 
 who embrace the Catholic faith are obliged to 
 sever their connection more or less with their native 
 world, and migrate to another and a strange 
 sphere. For many, and especially for the married 
 Protestant clergy, the profession of the Catholic 
 faith involves great sacrifices. Besides those which 
 are necessary from the very nature of the case, there 
 are many others to which persons who desire to be- 
 come Catholics are subjected by the persecution of 
 their former associates in religion, and of those 
 with whom they are socially connected. Converts 
 have been ostracized from their families and society, 
 calumniated, disinherited, driven from their employ- 
 ments, treated as disgraced and criminal persons, 
 forcibly prevented from practising their religion, 
 driven into poverty, and otherwise made the victims 
 of social and domestic tyranny ; in spite of the pre- 
 tence which Protestants make of respecting liberty 
 of conscience. And numbers of others who were 
 convinced that they ought to become Catholics, 
 and who wished to do so, have been prevented by 
 unjust and violent means, by threats, or by a well- 
 
290 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 grounded fear of suffering ill-treatment, from obey- 
 ing the voice of their conscience. Those who are 
 separated from the Catholic Church are suffering 
 for the sins of their forefathers. They abandoned 
 the glorious and peaceful kingdom of Christ, and 
 wandered away to found new churches after the 
 devices of their own hearts. The return is therefore 
 difficult and painful for their descendants, like the 
 return of the children of Israel to Chanaan after their 
 captivity. 
 
 I beg leave to represent to all the intelligent and 
 serious Protestants who read these pages that, hard 
 as it is for them to give up all those things con- 
 nected with their religion which are so dear to 
 them, it is better that they should do so voluntarily, 
 while they have time to save what is left to them of 
 their ancient Catholic heritage. The churches of 
 Protestantism are built on the sand, and their un- 
 stable foundations are rapidly being undermined and 
 washed away by the encroaching tide of infidelity 
 and impiety. The Bible is fast losing the authority 
 which belongs to it, but which cannot stand long 
 without the support of the church. The remnants 
 of the Catholic creed are fast dissolving, and the 
 ancient Christian laws of morality loosening their 
 hold. Protestant orthodoxy is crumbling to pieces* 
 before our eyes, and the descendants of those who 
 were the most zealous workmen in building and ex- 
 
The I Vay of Salvation. 291 
 
 tending it are the most active agents in the work of 
 tearing down the structure of their fathers. The 
 men of the present generation may console them- 
 selves with the hope that it will outlast their time. 
 It is to be feared that the majority of them will do 
 so, and. will remain where they are ; unless some 
 special intervention of God shall speedily open their 
 eyes to see, that the Catholic Church is the only re- 
 fuge of salvation, for society in general, and for every 
 individual who wishes to escape the destroying flood 
 of impiety. For the coming generation, the alter- 
 native of the Catholic faith or no religion is certain, 
 imperative, and inevitable. Those for whom I am 
 chiefly writing profess to obey the will of God be- 
 fore all other things, to believe in Jesus Christ as 
 the Divine Saviour of men, and to follow his 
 teachings and precepts. Let them reflect on his 
 words and on the examples of the apostles and 
 primitive Christians. " Seek ye, therefore, first the 
 kingdom of God, and his righteousness." " He that 
 loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy 
 of me : and he that loveth son or daughter more 
 than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh 
 not up his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy 
 of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it : and he 
 that shall lose his life for my sake shall find it." * 
 The enquiry after the true church, the true faith, the 
 * St. Matthew vi. 33 ; x. 37-39. 
 
292 The Way of Salvation. 
 
 lawful sacraments, is not one of secondary import- 
 ance, relating to non-essential matters. It is a ques- 
 tion of life and death, an enquiry after the true and 
 only way of salvation established by Jesus Christ. 
 The only consideration admissible by any upright and 
 conscientious person who fears God and wishes to 
 save his soul is : What is the truth, what is my duty ? 
 The only honest decision, when these are ascertained, 
 is to follow them immediately, without regard to 
 any temporal motives or interests. Such was the 
 conduct of our first Christian ancestors; and it has 
 been imitated by many in our own day, whose noble 
 and generous loyalty to conscience and the faith 
 once delivered to the saints, is a grand offset to 
 the ignoble apostasies of faithless and fallen Chris- 
 tians who have deserted the glorious standard of 
 the cross. May the grace of God add daily to their 
 number, and bring back all the strayed lambs of 
 Christ who still reverence his name and word to the 
 fold of the true church, that there may be one fold 
 and one shepherd, and the prayer of Christ receive 
 its perfect fulfilment : " That they all may be one ; as 
 thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also 
 may be one in us." 
 
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