that," either they do not materially affect conscience, or even supposing they affect salvation, men use liberty of conscience to reject the evil and preserve what is pure." At this rate, all would be reduced to liberty of conscience, and what error soever may be taught in the ministry, provided they force none to follow their decisions, and suffer all contrary doctrine, good or bad, it is enough to make M. Claude say that "the ministry furnishes the children of God with all necessary aliments, without depriving them of any of them." But, according to this pretension, there would be no society whose ministry should better furnish all necessary aliments than a society of Socinians, who make it their boast that they will condemn no one. If it be said amongst our Reformed that a Socinian Church overthrows the foundation by denying the divinity of Jesus Christ; it is also said there, that it was no less overthrown, before their Reformation, by the idolatries, which, as they say, reigned every where. And if they contend, after all, that it is more dangerous to destroy the foundation by subtraction (with the Socinians), than (with the Roman Church) by these pretended additions which they call idolatry, besides all the subtraction we have just now shown there, according to the principles of the Reformed, and even before their Reformation, it were an unheard of extravagance to believe that it would be more easy for these true believers, who had to make the distinction of doctrines under a ministry full of errors, to cut off what is superfluous, than to supply what is defective, or that the foundation of the faith is more certainly overthrown by diminishing than by adding; the Scripture having so often comprehended under one common malediction as well those that diminish as those that add.*

It would, therefore, be more to M. Claude's purpose to set aside all this ministry and the perpetual visibility of the Church, and say, that it is, in fine, sufficient-all this visibility being overthrown that God has preserved the Holy Scripture, where the faithful, whether concealed or undisguised, whether dispersed or united, whether always subsisting or sometimes wholly extinct, shall clearly find, according to his principles, without any need of the ministry, "all necessary aliments." For, indeed, what use is a ministry to them in which error has the ascendancy? and would not the Scripture alone be more commodious and more instructive to them? This is what Protestants should say, to keep clear of the intricacies in which we involve them. But M. Claude neither durst nor ever will dare to do so, because he would have to face difficulties yet more insupporta

* Deut. iv. 2, xii. 32; Rev. xxii. 18, &c.

THE MINISTRY DIVINELY ESTABLISHED AND GUARANTEED. 115

ble and more manifest. The truth, in a word, is this: he feels that by pushing the authority and sufficiency, as I may say, of the Scripture, independently of all the ecclesiastical ministry, they must at last destroy the Scripture itself.

For he has found in Scripture, that the Scripture was not intended to be, like the philosophy of Plato, the rule of an ideal republic, but of a people always existing, which this Scripture calls "the Church." He has found that this people was to be always visible on earth, as being "not only to believe with the heart, but also to confess with the mouth,"* and, to use his own ternis, "make profession of the Christian truth." He has found that the Scripture was intrusted in the hands of such a people, to be the unchangeable rule thereof; that there should always be interpreters established by God, the author of this Scripture as well as the founder of this people; and that so the ministry destined by God to this interpretation was as everlasting as the Church itself.

If he expresses this solemn assurance, " God always preserves in the public ministry all that is necessary for the guidance of true believers to salvation," he cannot found this assurance on any human industry. Should God leave the ecclesiastical ministry to itself, it must fall. If then it be warrantably asserted that "God will always keep there all that is necessary for salvation," God himself must have so promised, and the everlasting duration of the ministry cannot be founded but on this promise. M. Claude also finds it in those words, "Thou art Peter," &c. It is from this text he concludes, as we do, that Jesus Christ, in speaking "to a Church that confesses," and confesses, indubitably, by her principal ministers (since it is by St. Peter in the name of the apostles), "to a Church connected with an external ministry and using the power of the keys," has promised her that "hell should not prevail against her," against her, consequently, when supported by this ministry: and therefore he affirms that God preserves always in the public ministry all that is necessary to the salvation of his children."

Another promise of Jesus Christ, directed to those that baptize and those that teach, and concluded by these powerful words, Lo, I am with you always, even unto the consummation of the world,"+ makes M. Claude, as well as us, say," that Jesus Christ promises the Church to be with her, to baptize with her, and to teach with her, without interruption, even to the end of the world." Thus, he admits that our Lord's promise regards the Church as connected with the ecclesiastical ministry;

* Rom. x. 10.

† Matt. xxviii. 20.

THE

ble and

the

then

TRUE VIEW OF THE CHURCH.

119

it M. Claude so elaborately propounds, besides beves the difficulty unabated, and his cause in as bad s it was before his defence. But that it may not be have confined ourselves to the business of refuting ell him the truth in a few words. The main body h are the true believers, and those principally, who, g to the end," abide eternally in Jesus Christ, and in them-that is, the elect. The wicked, who enare, after their manner, comprehended under the irch, as the nails, as the hair, as an eye put out, and irm, which perhaps receives no more nourishment, ended under the name of body. All is for those true The ministry under which they live is theirs in the that St. Paul said,* "All things are yours, whether bollo, or Cephas." Not that the power of their pasfrom them, or that they alone can set them up and n; God forbid! This pastoral and apostolic power Him who said, "As my Father hath sent me, so alou. Hence St. Paul, in the chapter just cited, asks, en is Apollo, and who is Paul? The ministers of n you have believed, and to every one as God hath m" to you to be believers, and to us to be pastors. fore," he adds further, "we are God's laborers," or, etter, co-operators. These ministers and these workers hed by God are also the ministers of the faithful, and in se are theirs, because they are "their servants, in Jesus

established in the chair, not for themselves, for as m it would suffice to be simple believers, but to edify ints. He that desires to be in the communion of saints not anxiously toil to distinguish them from others for gh they are known and perfectly discerned but by God e, we are sure to find them under the public ministry, and he external profession of the Catholic Church. We need n only stay there to be assured to find the saints; because s profession, and the ever-fruitful word of preachers, which ver fails to engender some, keeps them always inseparably nited to the holy society where they received it. Wherefore, vhen Jesus Christ promises to teach always with his Church, ne comprehends all in this word; and rendering, by virtue of this promise, the Church infallible exteriorly in the manifestation of the truth, renders her interiorly fruitful. If the preachers of the truth be, by their corrupt living, unworthy of their

1 Cor. iii. 22.

§ 1 Cor. iii. 9.

John xx. 21.

|| 2 Cor. iv. 5.

1 Cor. iii. 4, 5.

that," either they do not materially affect conscience, or even supposing they affect salvation, men use liberty of conscience to reject the evil and preserve what is pure." At this rate, all would be reduced to liberty of conscience, and what error soever may be taught in the ministry, provided they force none to follow their decisions, and suffer all contrary doctrine, good or bad, it is enough to make M. Claude say that "the ministry furnishes the children of God with all necessary aliments, without depriving them of any of them." But, according to this pretension, there would be no society whose ministry should better furnish all necessary aliments than a society of Socinians, who make it their boast that they will condemn no one. If it be said amongst our Reformed that a Socinian Church overthrows the foundation by denying the divinity of Jesus Christ; it is also said there, that it was no less overthrown, before their Reformation, by the idolatries, which, as they say, reigned every where. And if they contend, after all, that it is more dangerous to destroy the foundation by subtraction (with the Socinians), than (with the Roman Church) by these pretended additions which they call idolatry, besides all the subtraction we have just now shown there, according to the principles of the Reformed, and even before their Reformation, it were an unheard of extravagance to believe that it would be more easy for these true believers, who had to make the distinction of doctrines under a ministry full of errors, to cut off what is superfluous, than to supply what is defective, or that the foundation of the faith is more certainly overthrown by diminishing than by adding; the Scripture having so often comprehended under one common malediction as well those that diminish as those that add.*

It would, therefore, be more to M. Claude's purpose to set aside all this ministry and the perpetual visibility of the Church, and say, that it is, in fine, sufficient-all this visibility being overthrown-that God has preserved the Holy Scripture, where the faithful, whether concealed or undisguised, whether dispersed or united, whether always subsisting or sometimes wholly extinct, shall clearly find, according to his principles, without any need of the ministry, "all necessary aliments." For, indeed, what use is a ministry to them in which error has the ascendancy? and would not the Scripture alone be more commodious and more instructive to them? This is what Protestants should say, to keep clear of the intricacies in which we involve them. But M. Claude neither durst nor ever will dare to do so, because he would have to face difficulties yet more insupporta

* Deut. iv. 2. xii. 32; Rev. xxii. 18, &c.