the Redeemer; then the doctrine of the Incarnation of the Godhead and the Manhood of the Son of God; then of the Holy Trinity, and of the personality and Godhead of the Holy Ghost. To these succeeded controversies on sin, grace, and the Holy Sacraments; finally the heresies of the so called Reformation, which spread over what remained unassailed in the Catholic Theology, especially the Divine authority and the institution of the Church itself. The Councils before Trent have completely guarded all doctrines of faith hitherto contested, by precise definition, excepting only the two primary and preliminary truths anterior to all doctrine, namely, the revelation of the supernatural order and the Divine authority and institution of the Church. To affirm and to define these seems to be, as I said, the mission and character of the Vatican Council, and indicates the state of the Christian world; because in the last three hundred years the rapid development of the rationalistic principle of Protestantism has swept away all intermediate systems and fragmentary Christianities. The question is reduced to a simple choice of faith and unbelief, or, of the natural or the supernatural order.

This, then, is the starting-point of the first dogmatic Constitution, De Fide Catholica.

In the Prooemium, the Council declares that none can fail to know how the heresies condemned at Trent have been subdivided into a multitude of contending sects, whereby Faith in Christ has been overthrown in many; and the Sacred Scriptures, which at first were avowedly held to be the source and rule of faith, are now reputed as fables. The

cause of this it declares to be, the rejection of the Divine authority of the Church, and the license of private judgment.

"Then sprang up," it goes on to say, "and was widely spread throughout the world, the doctrine of rationalism or naturalism, which opposing itself altogether to Christianity as a supernatural institution, studiously labors to exclude Christ, our only Lord and Saviour, from the minds of men and from the life and morality of nations, and to set up the dominion of what they call pure reason and nature. After forsaking and rejecting the Christian religion, and denying the true God and His Christ, the minds of many have lapsed at length into the depth of pantheism, materialism, and atheism, so that, denying the rational nature of man, and all law of justice and of right, they are striving together to destroy the very foundations of human society.

While this impiety spreads on every side, it miserably comes to pass, that many even of the sons of the Catholic Church have wandered from the way of piety, and while truth in them has wasted away, the Catholic instinct has become feeble. For, led astray by many and strange doctrines, they have recklessly confused together nature and grace, human science, and divine faith, so as to deprave the genuine sense of dogmas which the Holy Church our Mother holds and teaches; and have brought into danger the integrity and purity of the Faith."

Such is the estimate of the condition of the Christian world in the judgment of the Vatican

Council; and from this point of sight we may appreciate its decrees.

*

Its first chapter is of God the Creator of all things. In this is decreed the personality, spirituality and liberty of God, the creation of corporeal and of spiritual beings, and the existence of body and soul in man. These truths may be thought so primary and undeniable as to need no definition. To some it may be hardly credible, that, at this day, there should exist men who deny the existence of God, or His personality, or His nature distinct from the world, or the existence of spiritual beings, or the creation of the world, or the liberty of the Divine will in creation. But such errors have existed and do exist, not only in obscure and incoherent minds, but in intellects of power and cultivation, and in philosophies of elaborate subtilty, by which the faith of many has been undermined.

The second Chapter is on Revelation. It affirms the existence of two orders of truth: the order of nature, in which the existence of God as the beginning and end of creatures may be certainly known by the things which He has made; and the order which is above created nature, that is, God and His action by truth and grace upon mankind. The communication of supernatural truth to man is revelation; and that revelation is contained in the Word of God written and unwritten, or in the divine tradition committed to the Church. These truths, elementary and certain as they seem, have been and are denied by errors of a contradictory

*The text of the Constitutions will be found in the Appendix, No. IV.

kind. By some it is denied that God can be known by the light of reason; by others it is affirmed not only that God may be known by the light of reason, but that no revelation is necessary for man; once more, others deny that man can be elevated to a supernatural knowledge and perfection; again, others affirm that he can attain to all truth and goodness of and from himself. These errors also are widespread; and in the multifarious literature which Catholics incautiously admit into their homes and minds, have made havoc of the faith of many.

The third Chapter is on Faith. It may be truly said, that in this chapter every word is directed against some intellectual aberration of this century.

It affirms the dependence of the created intelligence upon the uncreated, and that this dependence is by the free obedience of faith; or, in other other words, that inasmuch as God reveals to man truths of the supernatural order, man is bound to believe that revelation by reason of the authority or veracity of God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived. The infallibility of God is the motive of faith. And this faith, though it be not formed in us by perceiving the intrinsic credibility of what we believe, but by the veracity of God, nevertheless is a rational or intellectual act, the highest and most normal in its nature. For no act of the reason can be more in harmony with its nature than to believe the Word of God. To assure mankind that it is God who speaks, God has given to man signs and evidences of His revelation, which exclude reasonable doubt. The act of faith therefore is not

a blind act, but an exercise of the highest reason. It is also an act not of necessity but of perfect freedom, and therefore in itself an act of normal obedience to God, and meritorious in its nature. And this act of faith, in which both the intellect and the will have their full and normal exercise, is nevertheless an act not of the natural order, but of the supernatural, and springs from the preventing grace of the Holy Spirit, Who illuminates the intelligence and moves the will. Faith is therefore a gift of God, and a moral duty which may be required of us by the commandment of God.

But inasmuch as the grace of faith is given to man that he may believe the revelation of God, it is co-extensive with that whole revelation. Whatsoever God has revealed, man, when he knows it, is bound to believe. But God has made provision that man should know His revelation, because He has committed it to His Church as the guardian and teacher of truth. Whatsoever, therefore, the Church proposes to our belief as the Word of God, written or unwritten, whether by its ordinary and universal teaching, or by its solemn judgment and definition, we are bound to believe by divine and Catholic faith.

To this end, God has instituted in the world His visible Church, one, universal, indefectible, immutable, ever multiplying; the living witness of the Incarnation, and the sufficient evidence of its own mission to the world. The maximum of extrinsic evidence for the revelation of Christianity is the witness of the Church, considered even as an historical proof; and that evidence is not only sufficient to convince a rational nature that Christianity