this most intimate knowledge before Him, that He promised to provide us with a reliable and infallible teacher, who should safeguard His doctrine, and publish the glad tidings of the Gospel, throughout all time, even unto the consummation of the world.  Since it is God Who promises, it follows, with all the rigour of logic, that this fearless Witness and living Teacher must be a fact, not a figment; a stupendous reality, not a mere name; One, in a word, possessing and wielding the self-same authority as Himself, and to be received and obeyed and accepted as Himself:  “Who heareth you heareth Me” (Luke x. 16).

This teacher was to be a supreme court of appeal, and a tribunal, before which every case could be tried, and definitely settled, once for all.  And since this tribunal was a divine creation, and invested by God Himself with supernatural powers for that specific purpose, it must be fully equipped, and thoroughly competent and equal to its work.  For God always adapts means to ends.  Hence it can never resemble the tribunals existing in man-made churches, which can but mutter empty phrases, suggest compromises, and clothe thought in wholly ambiguous language—­tribunals that dare not commit themselves to anything definite and precise.  Yea, which utterly fail and break down just at the critical moment, when men are dividing and disagreeing among themselves, and most needing a prompt and clear decision, which may close up the breach and bring them together.

No!  The decisions of the authority set up by Christ are in very truth—­just what we expect to find them—­viz., clear, ringing and definite.  They divide light from darkness, as by a divine hand; and segregate truth from error, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

Christ promised as much as this, and if He keep not His promise, then He can hold out no claim to be God, for though Heaven and earth may pass away, God’s words shall never pass away.  That He did so promise is quite evident; and may be proved, first, explicitly, and from His own words, and secondly, implicitly, from the very necessity of the case; and from the whole history of religious development.  Cardinal Newman, even before his reception into the Church, was so fully persuaded of this, that he wrote:  “If Christianity is both social and dogmatic, and intended for all ages, it must, humanly speaking, have an infallible expounder....  By the Church of England a hollow uniformity is preferred to an infallible chair; and by the sects in England an interminable division” (Develop., etc., p. 90).  In the Catholic Church alone the need is fully met.

The Church is established on earth by the direct act of God, and is set “as an army in battle array”.  It exists for the express purpose of combating error and repressing evil, in whatever form it may appear; and whether it be instigated by the devil, or the world, or the flesh.  But, let us ask, Who ever heard of an army without a chief?  An army without a supreme commander is an army without subordination and without law or order; or rather, it is not an army at all, but a rabble, a mob.