Indeed, it would have been hopelessly impossible to carry on the government of the Church and to maintain unity amongst its ever-increasing numbers, if there were no supreme authority ready to assert itself; to correct errors; to resist abuses; and to restrain those who might introduce dissensions and differences.  Of this fact, the present deplorable chaotic state of the Anglican and other non-Catholic Churches offers us abundant and forcible illustrations.  From the very first the One True Church has not only taught, but ruled; not only spoken, but acted.  And when any of her subjects have proved obstreperous and disobedient, and stubborn in their resistance to her orders, she has invariably turned them out of her fold, so that they should not infect and contaminate the good and the loyal.  It was in this sense that St. Paul, the inspired Apostle, in the very first century of the Christian era, instructed Titus to construe and administer the law committed to his charge.  After warning Titus that there are “many vain talkers and deceivers,” St. Paul commands him “to rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in faith”.  He adds further:  “These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke, with all authority”.  But this was not all.  He was not only to decide who were the “vain talkers and deceivers”.  Nor was he simply “to exhort and rebuke them sharply, and with all authority,” that they might become “sound in the faith,” but if they persisted after the first and second admonition, he was also to reject them, and thrust them out of the Church, as heretics.  “Reject a heretic, after the first and second admonition” (Tit. iii. 10).  Now Titus was neither an Apostle nor a Pope, but a simple Bishop.  If then such were the powers invested in him, how much more fully still must this authority be inherent in the Vicar of Christ himself, who is the supreme head upon earth of the entire Church of God.

It is this prompt amputation of the diseased members, before the hideous canker has time to spread, that has kept the Church of God pure to this day, while heretical bodies have fallen into greater and greater spiritual decay.  It is because she fearlessly and resolutely insists upon all her children accepting the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, that she presents to the world, century after century, with miraculous clearness and perspicuity, the Divine hall-mark of unity.

6.  Outside the true Church of God there is no recognised voice strong enough to enforce any uniformity of belief.  Though the Pope’s authority was acknowledged throughout England for over one thousand years, yet at the time of the so-called Reformation, that Voice of God, speaking through Peter, was admitted no longer.  Hence, as Cardinal Manning most truly observes:  “The old forms of religious thought are now passing away in England.  The rejection of the Divine Voice has let in the flood of opinion; and opinion has generated scepticism; and scepticism