Apologia pro vita sua being a history of his religious opinions
of men is in a true sense discarded from His presence. Did I see a boy
of good make and mind, with the tokens on him of a refined nature, cast
upon the world without provision, unable to say whence he came, his
birth-place or his family connexions, I should conclude that there was
some mystery connected with his history, and that he was one, of whom,
from one cause or other, his parents were ashamed. Thus only should I be
able to account for the contrast between the promise and the condition
of his being. And so I argue about the world;--_if_ there be a God,
_since_ there is a God, the human race is implicated in some terrible
aboriginal calamity. It is out of joint with the purposes of its
Creator. This is a fact, a fact as true as the fact of its existence;
and thus the doctrine of what is theologically called original sin
becomes to me almost as certain as that the world exists, and as the
existence of God.
And now, supposing it were the blessed and loving will of the Creator to
interfere in this anarchical condition of things, what are we to suppose
would be the methods which might be necessarily or naturally involved in
His purpose of mercy? Since the world is in so abnormal a state, surely
it would be no surprise to me, if the interposition were of necessity
equally extraordinary--or what is called miraculous. But that subject
does not directly come into the scope of my present remarks. Miracles as
evidence, involve a process of reason, or an argument; and of course I
am thinking of some mode of interference which does not immediately run
into argument. I am rather asking what must be the face-to-face
antagonist, by which to withstand and baffle the fierce energy of
passion and the all-corroding, all-dissolving scepticism of the
intellect in religious inquiries? I have no intention at all of denying,
that truth is the real object of our reason, and that, if it does not
attain to truth, either the premiss or the process is in fault; but I am
not speaking here of right reason, but of reason as it acts in fact and
concretely in fallen man. I know that even the unaided reason, when
correctly exercised, leads to a belief in God, in the immortality of the
soul, and in a future retribution; but I am considering the faculty of
reason actually and historically; and in this point of view, I do not
think I am wrong in saying that its tendency is towards a simple
unbelief in matters of religion. No truth, however sacred, can stand
against it, in the long run; and hence it is that in the pagan world,
when our Lord came, the last traces of the religious knowledge of former
times were all but disappearing from those portions of the world in
which the intellect had been active and had had a career.
And in these latter days, in like manner, outside the Catholic Church
things are tending,--with far greater rapidity than in that old time
from the circumstance of the age,--to atheism in one shape or other.
What a scene, what a prospect, does the whole of Europe present at this
day! and not only Europe, but every government and every civilization
through the world, which is under the influence of the European mind!
Especially, for it most concerns us, how sorrowful, in the view of
religion, even taken in its most elementary, most attenuated form, is
the spectacle presented to us by the educated intellect of England,
France, and Germany! Lovers of their country and of their race,
religious men, external to the Catholic Church, have attempted various
expedients to arrest fierce wilful human nature in its onward course,
and to bring it into subjection. The necessity of some form of religion
for the interests of humanity, has been generally acknowledged: but
where was the concrete representative of things invisible, which would
have the force and the toughness necessary to be a breakwater against
the deluge? Three centuries ago the establishment of religion, material,
legal, and social, was generally adopted as the best expedient for the
purpose, in those countries which separated from the Catholic Church;
and for a long time it was successful; but now the crevices of those
establishments are admitting the enemy. Thirty years ago, education was
relied upon: ten years ago there was a hope that wars would cease for
ever, under the influence of commercial enterprise and the reign of the
useful and fine arts; but will any one venture to say that there is any
thing any where on this earth, which will afford a fulcrum for us,
whereby to keep the earth from moving onwards?
The judgment, which experience passes whether on establishments or on
education, as a means of maintaining religious truth in this anarchical
world, must be extended even to Scripture, though Scripture be divine.
Experience proves surely that the Bible does not answer a purpose for
which it was never intended. It may be accidentally the means of the
conversion of individuals; but a book, after all, cannot make a stand
against the wild living intellect of man, and in this day it begins to
testify, as regards its own structure and contents, to the power of that
universal solvent, which is so successfully acting upon religious
establishments.
Supposing then it to be the Will of the Creator to interfere in human
affairs, and to make provisions for retaining in the world a knowledge
of Himself, so definite and distinct as to be proof against the energy
of human scepticism, in such a case,--I am far from saying that there
was no other way,--but there is nothing to surprise the mind, if He
should think fit to introduce a power into the world, invested with the
prerogative of infallibility in religious matters. Such a provision
would be a direct, immediate, active, and prompt means of withstanding
the difficulty; it would be an instrument suited to the need; and, when
I find that this is the very claim of the Catholic Church, not only do I
feel no difficulty in admitting the idea, but there is a fitness in it,
which recommends it to my mind. And thus I am brought to speak of the
Church's infallibility, as a provision, adapted by the mercy of the
Creator, to preserve religion in the world, and to restrain that freedom
of thought, which of course in itself is one of the greatest of our
natural gifts, and to rescue it from its own suicidal excesses. And let
it be observed that, neither here nor in what follows, shall I have
occasion to speak directly of Revelation in its subject-matter, but in
reference to the sanction which it gives to truths which may be known
independently of it,--as it bears upon the defence of natural religion.
I say, that a power, possessed of infallibility in religious teaching,
is happily adapted to be a working instrument, in the course of human
affairs, for smiting hard and throwing back the immense energy of the
aggressive, capricious, untrustworthy intellect:--and in saying this, as
in the other things that I have to say, it must still be recollected
that I am all along bearing in mind my main purpose, which is a defence
of myself.
I am defending myself here from a plausible charge brought against
Catholics, as will be seen better as I proceed. The charge is
this:--that I, as a Catholic, not only make profession to hold doctrines
which I cannot possibly believe in my heart, but that I also believe in
the existence of a power on earth, which at its own will imposes upon
men any new set of _credenda_, when it pleases, by a claim to
infallibility; in consequence, that my own thoughts are not my own
property; that I cannot tell that to-morrow I may not have to give up
what I hold to-day, and that the necessary effect of such a condition of
mind must be a degrading bondage, or a bitter inward rebellion relieving
itself in secret infidelity, or the necessity of ignoring the whole
subject of religion in a sort of disgust, and of mechanically saying
every thing that the Church says, and leaving to others the defence of
it. As then I have above spoken of the relation of my mind towards the
Catholic Creed, so now I shall speak of the attitude which it takes up
in the view of the Church's infallibility.
And first, the initial doctrine of the infallible teacher must be an
emphatic protest against the existing state of mankind. Man had rebelled
against his Maker. It was this that caused the divine interposition: and
to proclaim it must be the first act of the divinely-accredited
messenger. The Church must denounce rebellion as of all possible evils
the greatest. She must have no terms with it; if she would be true to
her Master, she must ban and anathematize it. This is the meaning of a
statement of mine which has furnished matter for one of those special
accusations to which I am at present replying: I have, however, no fault
at all to confess in regard to it; I have nothing to withdraw, and in
consequence I here deliberately repeat it. I said, "The Catholic Church
holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth
to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation in
extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul,
I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin,
should tell one wilful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing
without excuse." I think the principle here enunciated to be the mere
preamble in the formal credentials of the Catholic Church, as an Act of
Parliament might begin with a "_Whereas_." It is because of the
intensity of the evil which has possession of mankind, that a suitable
antagonist has been provided against it; and the initial act of that
divinely-commissioned power is of course to deliver her challenge and to
defy the enemy. Such a preamble then gives a meaning to her position in
the world, and an interpretation to her whole course of teaching and
action.
In like manner she has ever put forth, with most energetic distinctness,
those other great elementary truths, which either are an explanation of
her mission or give a character to her work. She does not teach that
human nature is irreclaimable, else wherefore should she be sent? not,
that it is to be shattered and reversed, but to be extricated, purified,
and restored; not, that it is a mere mass of hopeless evil, but that it
has the promise upon it of great things, and even now, in its present
state of disorder and excess, has a virtue and a praise proper to
itself. But in the next place she knows and she preaches that such a
restoration, as she aims at effecting in it, must be brought about, not
simply through certain outward provisions of preaching and teaching,
even though they be her own, but from an inward spiritual power or grace
imparted directly from above, and of which she is the channel. She has
it in charge to rescue human nature from its misery, but not simply by
restoring it on its own level, but by lifting it up to a higher level
than its own. She recognizes in it real moral excellence though
degraded, but she cannot set it free from earth except by exalting it
towards heaven. It was for this end that a renovating grace was put into
her hands; and therefore from the nature of the gift, as well as from
the reasonableness of the case, she goes on, as a further point, to
insist, that all true conversion must begin with the first springs of
thought, and to teach that each individual man must be in his own person
one whole and perfect temple of God, while he is also one of the living
stones which build up a visible religious community. And thus the
distinctions between nature and grace, and between outward and inward
religion, become two further articles in what I have called the preamble
of her divine commission.
Such truths as these she vigorously reiterates, and pertinaciously
inflicts upon mankind; as to such she observes no half-measures, no