at, it is by this we begin to believe the Scripture; we continue also on the same foundation, and St. Augustine was a complete master in ecclesiastical science, when he said he should not believe the Gospel, were he not moved by the authority of the Catholic Church.* I could, were it in dispute, show the same opinion in the other Fathers. We must always re-ascend to the first principle, and this is the first principle that fixes us to the Church. Let us not be taxed with this vicious circle :"-the Church makes us believe the Scripture; the Scripture makes us believe the Church. This on both sides is true, in different respects. The Church and the Scripture are so made for one another, and do so perfectly adapt themselves one to the other, that they support each other as the stones of an arch and of a building mutually keep each other in their place. All nature is full of such examples. I bear the staff on which I lean; the flesh binds and covers the bones which sustain it; and all things in the universe mutually aid one another. So it is with the Church and the Scripture. There was but one Church, such as Jesus Christ founded, to which such a Scripture as we have could be addressed; that is, such a one as durst promise the Church, in which this Scripture was made, an eternal continuance. If any one receives the Scripture, by the Scripture I will prove to him the Church; if he acknowledges the Church, by the Church I will prove to him the Scripture: but since we must begin on one side, I have clearly enough shewn, by M. Claude's own confession, that, if we begin not by the Church, the divinity of the Scripture, and the faith we ought to have in it, is in danger; wherefore, the Holy Ghost begins our instruction by fixing us to the Church: "I believe the Catholic Church." Amongst our adversaries, a man must examine before he believes; and he must, before all things, examine the Scripture, by which he examines all the rest. It is not enough to have read some particular verses, some chapters, some books; until such time as one has read all, compared all, examined all, faith continues in suspense, since it is by this examination it is formed. Amongst true Christians, a man believes at once: "Thy faith hath saved thee," said Jesus Christ; "Thy faith," observes Tertullian, in that divine work of Prescriptions, "and not thy being versed in the Scriptures." There is no need of passing through opinions, doubts, and the uncertainties of human faith. "I never changed," said St. Basil: "what I believed from my infancy has only been strengthened in my following

It is embarrassing the controversy with extraneous topics to allege here, as M. Claude does, the Greek Church, the Armenian, the Egyptian or Ethiopian, and that of the Copts, and so many others which, equally with the Roman, put forward the claim to be the true Church. It is said: those who are bred up in these Churches revere their authority; every one of these Churches has followers as zealous as ours. True and pure zeal has no discernible characteristic: every one attributes his, as we do, to the grace of the Holy Ghost, and resting on the authority of the Church in which he is, says that the Holy Ghost makes use of this authority to guide him to the belief of the Scripture and all the verities of Christianity.

This is, in a manner, M. Claude's objection; and thus it is that sometimes when men cannot disentangle themselves, they endeavor to entoil others in the same perplexity as their own. But he will gain nothing by this manoeuvre; for, in fact, what cause does he pretend to combat for? Is it for indifferency of religions? Will he say, with abandoned men, that there is no true Church in which divine impulses really act? And will he, under pretence that the devil, or, if he please, nature, can imitate, or, to say better, counterfeit these impulses,—will he maintain that they are every where imaginary? God forbid; we both of us wish to avoid this rock. He will avow then with me, that there is a true Church, which soever it be; a Church in which the Holy Ghost acts; though looking only to the exterior we cannot always so easily discern who those are in whom he dwells. Up to this point we are agreed. Let us see now how far we can go together. We agree that there is one true Church, in which the Holy Ghost acts; we agree that he makes use of outward means to put the truth in our hearts; we agree that he makes use of the Church and of the Scripture. Our question is, to know by which he begins; whether by the Scripture or by the Church; whether, I say, he makes us believe the Church by the Scripture, or rather makes us believe the Scripture by the Church? I say that the Holy Ghost begins by the Church; and it must be so, since it is manifestly the Church that puts the Scripture in our hands. It is at this point, however, that M. Claude quits me, and begins to walk alone; but he falls at the very first step into a precipice. For, his fear of acknowledging an infallible authority in the true Church, and of believing that on her word we may make an act of divine and supernatural faith concerning the Scripture, obliges him to say that it is not possible to begin the reading of the Holy Scripture by such an act of faith, and that every act of faith which precedes this reading is an act of human faith. To this deplorable pass he

brings a Christian at his first going to read the Holy Scripture. M. Claude cannot rise out of this abyss without returning to the place where he began to leave me, and saying afterwards with me, that there is a true Church, wheresoever she be, the veneration of which the Holy Ghost first inspires into true believers; that by this veneration, which he at first puts in their hearts, he fixes them to the Scripture which this Church presents them; that this Church requires also of all those she can instruct that they upon her word adore the infallible truth of this Scripture, and does not acknowledge for her children those who have only a human faith for it.

But, say they, the "Roman" Church is not the only one which attributes to herself this authority; the Greek and other Churches will have one believe them on their word. These Churches teach that this is the means to read the Holy Scripture with the submission of divine faith. Well, if it be so, it remains only to choose between these Churches. But then at once, at a single stroke, the Calvinistic Church is fallen; she degrades herself, as I may say, from the title of Church, since she finds not in herself authority enough to cause all those whom she begins to instruct to make an act of a Christian, and an act of divine faith, not even on the truth of the Scripture; whence it is supposed she ought to learn all the rest.

But M. Claude asks, how one shall choose between the Churches? Shall it be by enthusiasm? It would be by enthusiasm, as I observed in the Conference, if the true Church had not her characteristics that distinguish her from others. Without going further, or entering into long investigations, I say she has her succession, any interruption, innovation, or change in which, no one can ever prove against her by any positive fact. This is a characteristic, which no false Church can so clearly glory of as the true; because by glorying of it she would visibly condemn herself. There will be then always, in the instruction which the true Church will give her children concerning her condition, something that no other sect can or dare say. It is by this we would convict, if it were needful, the Greeks, the Ethiopians, the Armenians, and other sects, which seem in this respect more deceiving, because of the appearance of succession that they show; which also enables them to claim for themselves somewhat more plausibly the authority of the Church. But as for the Calvinistic Church, there is an end of her at once, because she has not so much as an apparent and colorable succession, and does not, as we have now shown by M. Claude's

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acknowledgment, attribute to herself this authority, without which there can neither be any certain instruction, nor any assured foundation of divine faith,-nor, in fine, any Church.

It would then be an unprofitable waste of time for us here to discuss, with the Egyptians and Greeks, the succession of which they boast. It would be no great labor to show them the exact moment of their innovation; the pretended Reformed know it as well as we, and do themselves show it them when they please. So, when they press us to do it, it is not because they believe they give us an impossible, or even an obscure and difficult task, but it is, in a word, because, with a cause so bad as theirs is, some advantage is found in shifting the question and diverting the reader from the train of an argument.

Thus, I had reason to tell Mademoiselle de Duras, in one of the instructions of this book, that if any one disgusted with the Calvinistic Church were tempted to embrace the religion of the Copts, or of the Greeks, it would then be time enough to show them in these Churches that certain period of their novelty, which they can no more deny than can other sects; but that since the Calvinists, with whom we have to do, admitted this, and since no one thinks of leaving them but to come to us,when we obliged any one to leave them, by showing, from their minister's own confession, the enormous absurdities of their doctrine, the work was done, and all the rest on that occasion would be to no purpose. And let the reader consider the method of the Conference, and the state of the question which is there treated. The direct aim of the Conference was not to establish the Roman Church, but only to show there is somewhere or other a true Church, to which we must submit without examining; and further, that this cannot be the Calvinistic Church, since she will herself have one examine after her, which makes her acknowledge the absurdities we have remarked, and by this acknowledgment lose the title of Church.

This done, there is no further need of recommending the Roman Church-that is, that Church or body of believers whereof Rome is the head; because whosoever wishes to choose between two Churches, and finds one disproved, finds the other established, and there is no need of disputing further. Besides that the Roman Church so evidently bears these luminous characters of the true Church, that scarce any man of good sense, even amongst our Reformed, but agrees that, if there be in this world an authority to which we must submit, it is that of this Church.

At all events, when one sees the absurdities he is forced to own in Calvinism, for want of having acknowledged in the

Church's authority the true principles of Christian instruction, he soon withdraws from a Church whose method and instruction is so manifestly defective, and a man is sufficiently solicited, by the remnant of Christianity which he feels within himself, to return to the Church which he quitted.

We see, in M. Claude's discourses, that, pressed by this want of authority which ruins all instruction in his Church, he affects to make our dispute wholly turn upon the instruction of children, and thinks he has found an advantage by making this instruction depend on parents and nurses, who are better known at that age than the Church and her ministers. By this means he thinks to conceal from us the Church's authority in the first exercises and the first acts of faith we make, before we have read the Holy Scripture. But he ought to have considered, first, that the argument I proposed to him did not regard merely children. Children are not the only Christians that have not read the Scripture. M. Claude is not ignorant that there were in the beginning of Christianity not only individuals, but also whole nations, that, according to the testimony of St. Irenæus,* had not the Holy Scripture, and were perfect Christians, although they did not read the Scripture. The question, then, between us regards in general all such as have not read the Holy Scripture, of what age soever they may be, and whatsoever may have been the cause of their not having read it; for it is in respect of such, and, if you will, in respect of those whom St. Irenæus mentions, or of their like, that I inquire-on whose faith do they believe the Scripture, and enter upon the reading of it, as being inspired by God? If they have but a human faith, as M. Claude says, they are not Christians; and if they have a divine faith (as must be acknowledged, or an absurdity be encountered from which we recoil), it is then true that divine faith, without one's having read the Scripture, immediately follows the Church's doctrine, and establishes her infallible authority. It is on this authority that every Christian who takes this Scripture in hand begins by believing, with a firm faith, that all he is going to read is divine; and he stays not the believing of this Scripture until he has read it all; he believes the first chapter before he has read the second, and believes the whole before he has read the first letter, or so much as opened the book. Therefore, he does not form his faith by the reading of the Scripture; this reading finds his faith already formed; this reading does but confirm to a Christian all he already believed, and all he

[Multæ gentes barbarorum, eorum qui in Christum credunt, sine charta et atramento scriptam habentes per Spiritum in cordibus suis salutem, et veterem Traditionem diligenter custodientes. Contra Hæres. iii. 4. p. 178. Ed. Ben.]