76

PRETENDED GUIDANCE of the SPIRIT.

Church, will always be well assured of not being alone in his sentiment, since there will always remain some hidden chosen one who will think as he does: as if (without refuting this dream) it were not a sufficiently detestable pride to set himself alone above all that is seen or heard to speak in the whole Church beside. It will be said still: It is no pride to believe oneself enlightened by the Holy Ghost. But on the contrary, it is the height of pride, that particular persons should believe the Holy Ghost will instruct them, and leave in error all the faithful that appear in the rest of the Church. Nor is it to any purpose to answer, as M. Claude does in his Relation, "that the Spirit breatheth where he will:"* for they must show that this Spirit, who resteth on the humble, fails not to breathe on those who believe themselves alone more capable of understanding the Scripture, than all the rest of the Church, since they examine after her; and not only to breathe upon them, but Himself also to inspire them with this proud thought. But, in fine, be this as it may, and without disputing any farther, since this is no place for it, we have shown that it is a doctrine acknowledged in the new Reformation, that every particular person ought to examine after the Church, and consequently ought to believe that he may happen to understand the Scripture better than the Church and all her assemblies. Those whom such presumption revolts, or who, upon examination, do not find in themselves this false capacity, have nothing to do but to seek their salvation in another Church than that in which so monstrous a doctrine is professed.

The second absurdity I promised to make M. Claude and every sound Protestant avow is, that, unless there be acknowledged in the Church an authority after which there must be no more examining or doubting, one must inevitably suppose a point of time in which the believer, after he has reached the age of reason, cannot make an act of faith upon the Scripture, and in which consequently, he must doubt whether it be true or false. I assigned for this point of doubt all the time in which a Christian, for what cause soever, has not read the Holy Scripture. M. Claude here protests against so detestable a proposition. However, I do still maintain, that he not only owned it in the Conference, but also that, whatever ingenuity he may have exerted at present, he has not been able to escape admitting it even in his Relation.

To say truth, this is one of the passages in which I least recognize what we really said at the time. But there is still

* John iii. 8.

enough to convict him since, if this Relation becomes public, it will be found that he here acknowledges, in express terms, "that he, who has not yet read the Holy Scripture, believes it to be God's word, with a human faith, because his father told him so, which is the state of a catechumen; and when he has himself read this book, and felt the efficacy of it, he believes it to be God's word, no longer with a human faith, because his father told him so, but with a divine faith, because he has himself felt its divinity immediately, and this is the state of a believer." It is then true, that he has acknowledged that point of time I undertook to show, when a baptized Christian is not in a condition to make an act of supernatural and divine faith upon the Holy Scripture, since he believes it to be God's word only by a human faith, and divine faith cannot come until after the reading of it.

Howsoever he may turn this human faith, it is a horrible thing that a baptized Christian, who has come to the age of reason, cannot make upon the Scripture, an act of that faith by which we are Christians. For, thence it follows, that a Christian who is about to read the Scripture for the first time, ought neither to be inclined of himself nor to be induced by any other to say, on opening the book-"As I believe that God is, I believe that the Scripture I am going to read is his word." On the contrary, he should be taught to say-"I am going to examine, whether henceforth, during the rest of my life, I ought to read this Scripture with such a faith." This is overthrowing the whole order of instruction; this is losing the fruit of baptism; this is leading Christians to instruct their baptized children as if they were not baptized, and had yet to deliberate of what religion they should be.

And what M. Claude says concerning the Scripture, the same he must say regarding the faith of the Trinity, and that of the Incarnation, and that of Jesus Christ's mission and the redemption of mankind. For, that which forces M. Claude and every Protestant to say that the believer who has not read the Holy Scripture, can believe it only with a human faith to be inspired by God, is, that otherwise, they must acknowledge an act of divine faith on the Church's sole authority, which would be to own this authority as infallible, and ruin the very foundation of all the new Reformation. But the same argument recurs upon all the articles of our faith; and if the faithful can assent with a divine faith to the Trinity, and the Incarnation, and the mission of Jesus Christ, on the sole authority of the Church, and before he has read the Holy Scripture, I shall still conclude with equal certainty that the Church's authority will be infallible. As a sequel, then, of M. Claude's principle-the principle of all Pro

testants-we must, in reducing Christians about to read the Holy Scripture to a bare human faith concerning the Scripture, reduce them at once to the like on the most essential articles of our belief.

Such was not the method of our forefathers. It was not thus that they taught Christians to instruct their children. When they baptized them in their infancy, Credo, "I believe," was said in the name of the children by their sponsors. No matter though our "Reformed"* have changed this form, it descends from primitive antiquity, and will be always holy and venerable, whatever they may do or say. But this form used towards children shows us that, when they shall have the use of reason, they must be immediately taught to make an act of faith, and no time must be lost in exciting them to it. Then they will be capable of it; they may say the same creed they would have said if they had been baptized when come to the use of reason; and to reduce them to a barely human faith is to take from them the grace of their baptism, and justify the practice as well as the doctrine of the Anabaptists.

And I entreat the professors of the "Reformed" religion not to suppose that I here allege the Anabaptists,† by way of exag geration, or to render them odious; such methods are not beseeming Christians. I strictly maintain that the doctrine taught here by M. Claude, and which all Protestants must teach with him, introduces Anabaptism. For, if the acts of divine faith must be held in suspense until such time as one has read the Holy Scripture, and be instructed by himself; if all the acts that precede this instruction be not acts of Christians, because having for their foundation only a human faith, for the same reason baptism must be deferred until that time, and we must not make Christians that at the age of reason are incapable of producing acts of their religion.

It is in vain for M. Claude to answer us that he will produce the same argument in respect of the Church as we allege against him in respect of Scripture; for, in order to do this, as we show him a point of time which, even after the age of reason has been reached, necessarily precedes the reading of the Scripture, he must also be able to show us one that precedes the Church's instructions: but this he will never find. Do what he will, we shall always mark him a point of time before the reading of the Scripture, which is that when the Church puts it into our hands;

* French Calvinists. In the baptism service of the Protestant Church of England, the distinct profession of the creed is made by the sponsors.

The unchristian and anti-social doctrines abetted by these sectaries may be seen in Mosheim (Cent. xvi. ch. 3), or Möhler's Symbolik (479–482).

but before the Church there is nothing,-she obviates all our doubts by her instructions.

It is an error to imagine that we must always examine before we believe. The happiness of those who are born, as I may say, in the bosom of the true Church is, that God has given her such an authority that we believe at once what she proposes, and that faith precedes, or rather excludes, examination.

To ask now by what motive God makes us sensible of his Church's authority, is manifestly to depart from the question. He has abundant motives to fasten his children to his Church— a Church to which he has given marked and luminous characters. This very fact, that of all the societies in the world, she is the sole, to whom no one can show her beginning or any interruption of her visible and outward state, by any averred fact, whilst she shows all other societies that environ her theirs, by facts which themselves cannot deny this very thing is a sensible character, that gives an inviolable authority to the true Church. God has abundant motives to make his children perceive this so marked a character of his Church. But be these motives what they may, and not to detail them here—because this is not the place to detail them,-it is certain that there are such motives; because, after all, we must be able to believe on the Church's word before we have read the Holy Scripture; and because in the first instruction we receive, no mention being made of Scripture, we are taught to say, as a fundamental act of our faith, "I believe the Catholic Church."

M. Claude tells us, that to authorize the method by which we pretend to lay the Church's faith as the foundation of all the rest, the creed should have begun with saying, "I believe the Church," whereas, it begins with saying, "I believe in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost." He does advert to the fact, that it is the Church herself which teaches us the whole creed, and it is on her word we say, "I believe in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son ;" and the rest; which we cannot say with a firm faith, unless God at the same time puts it in our hearts, that the Church which teaches us deceives us not. After, then, we have on her word said, "I believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost," and begun our profession of faith by the divine persons, whom their majesty places above all, we add a holy reflection on the Church which proposes this belief to us, and say, "I believe the Catholic Church;" to which we immediately join all the graces we receive by her ministry, "the communion of saints, the remission of sins, the blessed resurrection," and, in fine, "everlasting life."

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