they were destined to last till the end of the world, and to be fulfilled in the most perfect manner. The Christian Church possesses many prerogatives peculiar to itself, of which no participation whatever is found in the Old Testament economy, for the earlier dispensation was but the shadow, and enjoyed only a faulty and transient covenant. The Church of the New Testament, on the other hand, is the heavenly Jerusalem itself, endowed with the substance of good things, its covenant being established upon better promises and productive of a higher perfection. Such is the teaching of Scripture. But there are certain prerogatives which are necessarily found in every Church established by God for a supernatural end-in every Church the existence of which depends upon its safe preservation of a body of revealed doctrine, which it is bound to transmit to future time in its integrity. One of these essential prerogatives is the infallibility of the supreme ruler who is the centre of the Church, for without this infallibility there can be no guarantee that the deposit of doctrine will be preserved unchanged.

But the infallibility granted to the High Priest was limited; it extended no further than was necessary to secure the permanent existence of the Jewish Church, with unchanged symbol and exterior profession of faith. The peculiar Law and the peculiar doctrinal teaching of the Old Covenant all pointed towards the one central idea of the Messias, Whose coming to save mankind had been long ago promised by God, and for Whom all believers were waiting in constant expectation. This idea was to the Jewish Church a principle of life, maintaining it in vigour, and securing it against the natural tendency to decay. The preservation of this idea in its uncorrupted purity was then a matter of vital importance, and to secure this end was the object of the gift of infallibility conferred upon the Jewish

Church; and the same guarantee extended likewise to all revealed doctrines and divine institutions which were in any way connected with the central article of the Jewish faith. And thus we are brought to see in what sense it can be truly said that the infallibility granted to the High Priest was confined within certain limits. The meaning is not that though infallible while he remained within those limits he was nevertheless liable to transgress them, and by so doing sink to the ordinary level of fallible men; such a limitation is entirely destructive of the character of infallibility. The real limitation of the infallibility of the Pontiff was two-fold; those truths only were brought to his mind which the divine wisdom had judged suitable to be imparted to the Jewish Church, and at the same time he was hindered from going further, and promulgating as revealed any doctrine which did not truly form part of the revealed deposit. In the actual circumstances of the Jewish Church these limitations necessarily found place. Infallibility is a result of special divine assistance; it is no new revelation, hence it can extend only to such doctrines as have been already revealed. It excludes the idea of successive revelations.37 God had made known to His chosen people a large body of truth, and the preservation of the knowledge of this truth in its purity was one object of the existence of the Jewish Church. No fuller revelation was needed, nor was any granted until the day when the Holy Ghost descended upon the Apostles of Christ, and taught them all truth. The possession of the whole body of doctrine which God designed to impart to the race of man was the destined patrimony

37 This principle belongs to the general theory of development of revealed doctrine, of which we shall speak in the third part of this work. For the present it will be enough to refer to St. Thomas, in iii. Dist., xxv., q. 11, a. 2, sol. 1, ad 5.

of the new Church founded on the day of Pentecost. The Church of the Old Covenant, we repeat, had no mission to preserve any portion of Revelation beyond the one central truth of the future coming of the Messiah, and such subordinate truths as bore upon this, and therefore the divine assistance given to the Pontiff was circumscribed within the same limits. While he kept within these bounds he was infallible, and he was hindered from attempting to teach as revealed anything which was not included within these same limits. But in the case of the infallibility promised to the Christian Church and enjoyed by it, there is no such limitation. The Apostles of Christ were instructed in "all truth," so that no future public revelation has ever been made since the times of the Apostles, nor will be to the end of time; and therefore the infallible authority of the divinely appointed Head of the Christian Church is equally unconfined by bounds and limits -it embraces all revealed truth. The Church of God in all ages has been under the unceasing guidance of the Holy Spirit, but His office in each age did not go beyond what was required by that age for the fulfilment of the work assigned it in the divine economy of redemption. The Jewish High Priest was the infallible guardian of an imperfect revelation; the Christian Pontiff, with the same infallibility, preserves the perfect body of truth delivered to the Apostles of Christ.

SECTION II.

INFALLIBILITY AND SUPREMACY. THE SAME PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE PROVE THE ONE AND THE OTHER.

THE business of the present section will be to establish that the doctrine of Papal Infallibility flows from every one of the passages of the Gospels in which mention is made of the Papal Supremacy. It has been usual with theologians who have treated this subject to confine themselves to the text in the twenty-second chapter of St. Luke, where Peter is commissioned to confirm his brethren; but it is difficult to conceive supremacy as existing in its fulness according to the idea held in the Catholic Church unless it includes infallibility as one of its essential prerogatives; and we cannot believe that the words by which the Divine Founder of the Church first promised to St. Peter and his Successors the supremacy of jurisdiction, and afterwards conferred it upon him and them, should not contain at least some reference to the kindred gift of infallibility in teaching. We are therefore encouraged to look into the well-known passages in the sixteenth chapter of St. Matthew and the twenty-first of St. John; and doing so we find as full a demonstration that unity in the profession of the true faith, no less than the corporate unity of subjection to one head, was to be secured by the unshaken firmness of the rock of Peter. Nor must the proof we offer be deemed inadmissable as being new, and not founded on the teaching of the Fathers. Even if the fact were so, no valid objection could be based upon it; a constant progress and

development in the interpretation of Scripture is perfectly legitimate. But in truth, our interpretation is founded on the commentaries left us by the Fathers of the Church upon the passages in question. The teaching of antiquity has been handed down to us through successive ages, and has been a principal cause of the explicitness which the doctrine of Papal Infallibility has now attained.

Even those writers who deny Papal Infallibility admit that this prerogative was enjoyed by St. Peter, the divinely appointed Head of the Church. But the peculiar ministry of St. Peter did not terminate with the lifetime of the great Apostle. "Qu'on ne dise point," says Bossuet, in his magnificent sermon on the unity of the Church, "qu'on ne pense point que ce ministère de Saint Pierre finisse avec lui; ce qui doit servir de soutien à une Eglise éternelle ne peut jamais avoir de fin. Pierre vivra dans ses successeurs; Pierre parlera toujours dans sa chaire." 38 What is here said is true. The ministry of St. Peter shall continue for ever in the Church; the Chief of the Apostles shall live for ever in his Successors. The doctrine of Bossuet is that of the Fathers and Councils, inculcated by them so frequently that it seems superfluous to quote passages in illustration of so common a doctrine. Since then the ministry intrusted to St. Peter was the ministry of infallible teaching, this identical ministry will last for ever in the Church, and be exercised by the Successors of St. Peter. This follows clearly from the passages in which the divine establishment of this ministry in the person of St. Peter is recorded. By the words found in St. Matt. xvi. 18, as we proved in the first part of this work, Christ granted the supreme authority in the Church to St. Peter and his Successors. He constituted

38 Bossuet, Discours sur l'Unité de l'Eglise, pt. i. (Ouvrages, t. i., p. 715. Paris, 1863).