dition, we must consult the belief of the particular Churches, examine carefully the acts of the councils and the voluminous writings of the fathers of the Greek and Latin Churches. Who does not see that this labour requires a space of time and extent of erudition, that render it in general impracticable? There are, indeed, to be found men of an extraordinary capacity and application, whose taste and inclination lead them to this kind of research: with the aid of the rules of criticism, all founded upon good sense, they balance and weigh authorities, they distinguish between what the fathers taught, as individual teachers, and what they depose as testifiers to the belief and practice of their time, and they attach with discrimination the different degrees of credibility that are due, whether to their doctrine or their deposition. The world is well aware that such a labour is calculated but for a small number: and again, after all, how successful soever it may be, it scarcely ever leads to incontestible conclusions. We therefore are in want of some other means that may enable us altogether with certainty to arrive at the apostolic and divine traditions. The question is, what is this means?

Call to mind, Sir, what we have said upon the holy scripture: we have clearly discovered that, seeing the ignorance and incapacity of some, and the pride and infatuation of others, the authority of an interpreter, of an infallible judge, was absolutely necessary to make known and cause to be uniformly adopted the dogmas contained in scripture. We must say as much, and with still better right, for tradition. The same judge, the same interpreter that unfolds to us the sense of the divine books, manifests to us also that of tradition. Now this A 2

VOL. I.

judge, this interpreter, I must tell you here again, is ' the teaching body of the Church, the bishops united in the same opinion, at least in a great majority. It is to them that, in the person of the apostles, were made the magnificent promises: "Go, teach, I am "with you; he that heareth you heareth me. The Spirit of truth shall teach you all truth, &c." They alone then have the right to teach what is revealed, to declare what is in the written or unwritten word: they alone also have always been in possession of the exercise of it. No other ecclesiastics have ever pretended to it, whatever have been their rank, their dignity, and learning. They may be consulted and heard; it is even proper this should be done, and it always has been done; for they form the council of the bishops, and their erudition acquired by long study throws light upon the discussions. But as they have not the plentitude of the priesthood, they are not members of the eminent body that has succeeded to the college of the apostles, and with it received the promises. They are then without power and authority to pronounce: their duty is respectfully to await the decision, and when once it is passed, to submit to it. Before the decision, they were at liberty and permitted to discuss the question on the opposite side, to support their opinion with the weight of their erudition, the strength and warmth of their eloquence: after superiors have pronounced, all disputations are forbidden, discussion is closed: mixed up from henceforth with the simple and little ones, the most learned doctors lay down their private opinions, humbly confess that they were in error, and receive the decision of the bishops as decrees emanating from heaven. Such is the regulation of Jesus Christ, who suffers not in his Church

either pride, or bloated conceit, or obstinacy, whether in the rich, the great, or the learned ones of the world. Immediately he has spoken by his ministers, he wills that all heads, those even by means of which he has made himself heard; he wills, I say, that all heads should with equal humility and lowliness bow before his oracles.

Let it then be established as a principle, that to the bishops exclusively belongs the right of declaring what has or has not been revealed, that is, what is conformable or contrary to Scripture and tradition, or simply to one of the two. This is precisely the extent of their authority: never does it go farther. They can add nothing to revelation: they can take nothing from it: they are its interpreters and judges, but not its masters. In teaching us what we have to believe, they point out to us what has always been believed: they merely render the belief more explicit and clear, there, where before it was more vague and indistinct. It is therefore always the ancient faith that they propose to us, and never a new faith that they introduce: for revelation is not a new faith which we are permitted to revise and retract: it came forth in full perfection from Jesus Christ; and his disciples, inspired by him, have faithfully transmitted it whether by word of mouth or by writing, to their successors, enjoining them at the same time to transmit it with the same fidelity to those who should succeed them.

Thus the bishops, on succeeding to the apostolic ministry, find themselves specially commissioned to guard the Scriptures and tradition. They had already spent their clerical years and those of their priesthood in becoming acquainted with them, studying them and meditating upon them. Being by their episcopacy

become the guardians and interpreters of this double deposit of revelation, they have it more assiduously in their hands and under their eyes. Does any new doctrine arise that must soon require on their part a dogmatical decision, they prepare themselves for it by redoubling their application, by consulting each deposit alternately, by comparing them together, by making deeper researches into them with all the care which humanly speaking they are capable of: and, assuredly, when they shall come to the decision, He, who is always with them, and who is to instruct them in all truth, will never permit them all to agree in giving an erroneous sense to the written word, or the word that is not written. Their common decision will necessarily and uniformly be conformed to them, whether they infer it from both at once, or only from one of them. You and I might not have perceived it in either one or the other of these sources, but eyes interiourly enlightened by a celestial ray discover with certainty that which escapes a merely human penetration. We can therefore no longer admit a doubt respecting any dogma, that the teaching body of the Church has pronounced to have been revealed by Jesus Christ, that is, to be contained in Scripture, or in tradition, or in both at the same time. Learned and ignorant, the decision is for all: not that it is forbidden to those who feel so disposed, to seek for the truth of the dogma, either in Scripture or in the monuments of tradition: far from that, this study would merit praise and commendation: being previously directed and put in the way by the judgment of the Church, they will more easily trace in it her doctrines. But nothing obliges us in general to undertake this laborious and fatiguing examination; our masters, our fathers in faith have done it for us.

They have afterwards decided that such a dogma is in scripture, that such another comes from an apostolic tradition: they are of one accord in teaching it: we know it: it is a fact, it is known by the most simple: this is sufficient for all. All are equally bound to receive with the most unshaken confidence a decision which in itself is the most impartial and the most imposing that can be found upon earth, and which, moreover, heaven has engaged to raise to infallibility.'

As this doctrine has been hitherto quite a stranger to you, and as it properly constitutes the distinctive characteristic between the Catholic Church and all protestant societies, allow me to lay it open to you in a new light, in order to make you more sensible of it. In the first place, always keep in mind that, according to all our proofs, the promise of infallibility made in the apostles to their successors, does not regard any of these personally and in particular, because Jesus Christ does not remain for ever with any one, none of them being immortal; but that it is addressed to all their successors collectively and in a body. Likewise it follows that, if separately and individually they are susceptible of error, they cannot, by virtue of the promise, be so, when united together; that whatever deference their personal opinions require from us, we nevertheless do not owe the sacrifice of our opinion or our interior submission except to their unanimous decision; that truth being always to be found in the general agreement, it is this agreement we are bound to know and

"Nothing should be more venerable upon earth than the "decision of a truly ecumenical council."-Leibnitz, letter to the Dutchess of Brunswick. July 2nd, 1694.