for calling down fire from heaven on an offending village. It is often said, that whenever a man's asseveration of his infallibility is combined with the support of miracles, his inspiration is satisfactorily proved: and this statement is made on the assumption that God would never confer supernatural power on one who could be guilty of a falsehood. What, then, are we to say respecting Judas and Peter, both of whom had been furnished with the gifts of miracle, and employed them during a mission planned by Christ;* and of whom, nevertheless, one became the traitor of the garden, and the other uttered against his Lord three falsehoods in one hour!

Can there then be no external evidence of inspiration? There might be one perfectly decisive, though of little use where there is no concurrent perception of internal proof; an audible voice, clearly supernatural, heard by a sufficient number of witnesses, and announcing a person to be infallible. If, however, the inspiration is not universal, extending throughout the whole mind, and rectifying every species of error, it would be needful that the department to which it is restricted should be specified. Such a voice fell upon no Apostle; such a voice did fall upon Christ, at his baptism and transfiguration, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased;" words not vague; not affirming universal inspiration; but distinctly singling out the one infallible point, when they pronounce him beloved, the object of perfect moral approbation, the image of finished excellence, on whose fair majesty even the eye of God cannot rest without delight.

If, then, the only adequate evidence of inspiration (by which, be it remembered, I mean the Divine correction of intellectual and moral error) was not given to the Apostles; if their miracles do not prove it, and if they do not assert it for themselves, —and had they done so, we should still have required further satisfaction, the first impressions received from their writings

Luke ix. 1-10.

return upon us in full force; and we must pronounce them uninspired, but truthful; sincere, able, vigorous, but fallible; all in them that depends upon veracity to be received, all else open to examination; their statements of fact to be admitted, their interpretations of them to be criticised; their reasonings to be respected, but sifted; their morality to be reverenced, but studied in its adaptation to their own age and position. Venerable and holy men! how would they disclaim any other dignity than that of indicators to point us to their Lord! and how shrink from otherwise acting upon our minds, than by breathing into us that trustful reverence for his character, which is itself better than intellectual inspiration, and which filled their reason with energy, their affections with fervor, and their will with human omnipotence!

LECTURE II.

CATHOLIC INFALLIBITY.

MATTHEW XVI. 18.

AND I SAY ALSO UNTO THEE, THAT THOU ART PETER; AND UPON THIS ROCK WILL I BUILD MY CHURCH; AND THE GATES OF DEATH SHALL NOT PREVAIL AGAINST IT.

No instructed man can deny that the Roman Catholic Church presents one of the most solemn and majestic spectacles in history. The very arguments which are employed against its rites remind us of the mighty part which it has played on the theatre of the world. For when we say that the ceremonies of its worship, the decorations of its altars, and the evolutions of its priests, are conceived in the spirit of Heathenism, how can we forget, that it was once the witness of ancient Paganism, the victor of its decrepit superstitions, the rival, yet imitator of its mythology? When we ask the use of the lights that burn during the mass, how can we fail to think of the secret worship of the early Christians, assembled at dead of night in some vault beyond the eye of observation? When we wonder at the pantomimic character of its services, its long passages of gesticulation, are we not carried back to the time when the quick ear of the informer and persecutor lurked near, and devotion, finding words an unsafe vehicle of thought, invented the symbolical language which could be read only by the initiated eye? Long and far was this Church the sole vehicle of Christianity, that bare it on over the storms of ages, and sheltered it amid the clash of nations. It evangelized the

philosophy of the East, and gave some sobriety to its wild and voluptuous dreams. It received into its bosom the savage conquerors of the North, and nursed them successively out of utter barbarism. It stood by the desert fountain, from which all modern history flows, and dropped into it the sweetening branch of Christian truth and peace. It presided at the birth of art, and liberally gave its traditions into the young hands of Colour and Design. Traces of its labours, and of its versatile power over the human mind are scattered throughout the globe. It has consecrated the memory of the lost cities of Africa, and given to Carthage a Christian, as well as a classic, renown. If in Italy and Spain, it has dictated the decrees of tyranny, the mountains of Switzerland have heard its vespers mingling with the cry of liberty, and its requiem sung over patriot graves. The convulsions of Asiatic history have failed to overthrow it; on the heights of Lebanon, on the plains of Armenia, in the provinces of China, either in the seclusion of the convent, or the stir of population, the names of Jesus and of Mary still ascend. It is not difficult to understand the enthusiasm which this ancient and picturesque religion kindles in its disciples. To the poor peasant who knows no other dignity it must be a proud thing to feel himself the member of a vast community, that spreads from Andes to the Indus; that has bid defiance to the vicissitudes of fifteen centuries, and adorned itself with the genius and virtues of them all; that beheld the transition from ancient to modern civilization, and forms itself the connecting link between the old world in Europe and the new; the missionary of the nations, the associate of history, the patron of art, the vanquisher of the sword.

No one who has faith in the Providence of history, and believes that, even in the successions of error, there is some adaptation to human wants, can persuade himself to speak with contempt of a religion which has been permitted to occupy such a place in the world's anuals. As surely as there is a

Ruler of life, and a Father of Jesus, He would never suffer a system utterly depraved to fill the human mind, and be the sole conservator of the gospel, during such a reach of ages. It is not to be supposed that he has been baffled all this time in his purposes, and compelled to witness a useless Christianity; or why did he not reserve the gift, till it would no longer fail of accomplishing its mission? From a religion which has had to wind its way through the darkest ages and the foulest recesses of society, it is no doubt very easy to gather a multitude of superstitions and crimes; and there are clerical agitators, who assume the office of theological censors of antiquity, and find a pleasant occupation, in sweeping together the errors, and scandal, and enormities of a thousand years, and leaving them as a disgrace at the door of the Vatican. With such a temper I have no sympathy. Rather would I seek to discover what function God has assigned to this faith in the economy of the world. Nor perhaps is this impossible to discover. In society and nations, as in individuals, the human capacities unfold themselves in succession; memory, imagination, passion, before intellect. And during the period when those earlier faculties held the ascendency, and, in fixing on objects of veneration, the understanding was not yet consulted, the Catholic religion was well suited to human wants. Folded in the mystic mantle of tradition, or secreted in the forms of picturesque ceremony, or visible through the glow of affectionate fiction, the essential truths of Christianity found a living access to the heart and conscience of mankind.

At this first stage, however, of human progress, we no longer stand. To our acts of veneration now, the suffrage of the understanding has become indispensable. No fascination of the fancy can now be so complete, no preoccupation of the feelings so triumphant, as to be secure against all disturbance from the reason. The ideas of faith and of truth have approached more and more nearly to each other; and however much imagination there may be in our belief, there must at