clothing, but who inwardly are ravening wolves!) Again; our Saviour declared to St. Peter, that he built his Church upon a rock, and that the gates of hell should not prevail against it: yet Protestants pretend that the words of God have been falsified; that the Church of Christ was built upon sand, and not upon a rock; that the powers of darkness have prevailed over the Spirit of light, and that the pillar of truth has been overthrown by the machinations of the father of lies. To shew the force of the declaration that the Church was built upon a rock, our Saviour elsewhere says: Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man who built his house upon a rock, and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell not; for it was founded upon a rock." But Protestants, in maintaining that the Church of Christ had been torn from its foundations by the force of error, most pointedly falsify these words of the Son of God. They say that the Church was built upon sand; that the rain descended, the floods came, the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell: for it was founded upon sand. They say, that the Eternal Wisdom is not so wise as man, and that, instead of building secure from the storms of persecution, and the blasts of heresy, he lays his foundations upon a

(P) St. Matt. vii. 15.

(1) St. Matt. xvi. 18.

(*) St. Matt. xxvii. 24, 25.

shallow and a tottering base. They say that the omnipotent arm of the Deity has refused to uphold his own work from destruction; that he has promised what he would not perform; that the right hand of God is shortened for the protection of his chosen generation, his kingly Priesthood, his holy nation, his purchased people." They would have us to suppose that the Almighty had selected means unequal to his design, and would constrain within narrow and insufficient limits, the powers of a Being confessedly infinite. They would have us to believe, that our faith reposes upon the wisdom of men, and not upon the power of God."

Innumerable are the texts of Scripture to prove that indefectibility is a necessary mark of the true Church, and innumerable and uninterrupted are the testimonies to shew, that the Roman Catholic Church alone possesses this characteristic. The Church of Christ is never alluded to in the ancient prophecies, nor mentioned in any part of the sacred writings, but as containing within herself the principle of perpetuity. This is my covenant with them, saith the Lord: My Spirit that is in thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever. (")

(s) St. Peter ii. 9.

(t) 1 Cor. ii. 5.

(u) Isai. lix. 21.

at once.

Such is the promise of the Almighty to his people; such is the declaration of his fidelity to his Church and the truth of the Lord remaineth for ever. All the Fathers, all the expounders of the sacred text, concur in applying the prophecies regarding the law of Moses, and the promises made to the people of Israel, to the law of Christ, of which the Jewish dispensation was but a commencement and a type, and to the establishment of his religion upon earth. The circumstances are too parallel for the application not to be manifest From the vocation of Abraham to the coming of our Redeemer, the seed of Israel never failed; they suffered a persecution of 400 years in the bondage of Egypt; numbers of them apostatized; they rebelled against their Maker, and they `were led captive into Babylon: at one moment they triumphed in victory and prosperity-at another they mourned in defeat and disaster; at one period they were a free, a numerous, a powerful, and a wealthy people; at another, they were reduced to the extremity of slavery, poverty, and ruin; they were encompassed by enemies on every side; they were desolated with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, but their race was never extinguished,—the true religion was never lost there always remained a chosen few, whose virtue was invincible, and whose faith withstood

(*) Psl. cxvi. 2.

every temptation; who never bowed the knee to Baal, but who walked in the name of the Lord their God.(*)

So has it been with the Catholic Church. She was persecuted, and she rose up stronger and more glorious from persecution; she was assailed by heresy and schism, and she acquired force and stability from the attacks of her enemies, from the perfidy of her false friends, and from the defection of her perverse and rebellious followers. The Lord has set his sanctuary in the midst of her for evermore (a) she has always walked in his judgments, and observed his statutes; she is always guided by one shepherd, and illumined by the everlasting light.(*) In fine, she alone is, she alone can be, infallible, because she alone has ever been true to herself. Setting all the prophecies and every text of Scripture aside, she alone can be infallible, because she alone has ever declared herself in possession of infallibility. No other Church has ever advanced any pretensions to it. All others are founded upon the fallibility and infirmity of man, without any regard to the promises and the power of God.

To pursue the same reasoning:-As the Almighty gave the Israelites a pillar of fire to guide them

(9) Rom. xi. 4. (*) Micheas ii. 5. (a) Ezekiel xxxvii. 26. (b) Lev. xviii. 5. (c) St. John x. 16. (d) Isaiah lx. 1.

through the obscurity of the night, and a cloud to conduct them during the day, through a strange and hostile country; so has the same beneficent Being given us, in consideration of the same necessity, a bright and safe conductor through the dangerous and toilsome pilgrimage of this world, a neverfailing, a never-erring Church. And, as the Jewish people were ordered to observe and do whatever was commanded them by the Scribes and Pharisees who sat in the chair of Moses, so are we commanded to hear and obey those who sit in the chair of St. Peter, and fill the stations of the Apostles; they who are appointed by the same power and for the same purpose, namely, for the interpretation of the Law of God.

That the Law of God should be sometimes difficult of interpretation, and that the revelation of Heaven should have been so made to man, that each individual should not be capable of comprehending it, but that it should require an authorized tribunal to explain it, is only consistent with the usual situation of things in this imperfect state of existence. Neither is it any uncommon circumstance, that the lawgiver himself should not be the obvious and direct expounder of his law, but that he should choose to perform this office by delegation. In

(e) St. Matt. xxiii. 2, 3. (f) St. Matt. xviii. 17. viii. 20. St. Luke x. 16. Heb. xiii. 7, 17. 1 Ep. John iv. 6.