Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 2.djvu/566

to quote Scripture? let him read the Gospels, in which it is written,—"Then the devil took Him up," that is, the Lord and Saviour, "and placed Him on a pinnacle of the Temple, and said to Him, "If Thou art the Son of God, cast Thyself down, for it is written, He hath given His angels charge of Thee, to keep Thee in all Thy ways." … We must especially heed and remember the doctrine contained in this passage, that, when we meet with men citing the words of Apostles or Prophets against the Catholic Faith, we may take it as a Gospel sanction for being quite certain, that the devil speaks by their mouth.… If any one of the heretics be asked, how he proves that we ought to abandon the universal and ancient faith of the Church Catholic, he will promptly reply, "It is written;" and on the spot is ready with a thousand texts and proofs, some from the Law, some from the Psalms, some from the Apostles, some from the Prophets; with the view of precipitating the unhappy soul, by a new and perverse interpretation of them, from the secure pinnacle of Catholicism into the gulf of heresy. Moreover, they add promises which wonderfully deceive incautious men. They dare to engage and to proclaim that in their Church, that is, in their own meeting, there is a certain great and special grace of God, belonging to each of them personally, so that without labour, or endeavour, or pains, without seeking, or asking, or knocking, all who belong to their number, are so divinely ordered, that carried up aloft by the hands of angels, they can never "strike their foot against a stone," that is, stumble in their Christian course.

[This warning is especially seasonable to us of this day, who are beset both with the clamour, that "the Bible and the Bible only is the religion of Protestants," and with a thousand discordant views, all professedly Scriptural, in illustration of its unreasonableness. We may simply say, "that interpretation shall be ours, which the Church has ever taught from the first day until now. The whole body of saints, speaking unanimously, must be sounder and^more certain in their doctrine, than any of these upstart and self-authorized parties." If it be objected, that the Church Catholic at this day speaks different things; we may plainly deny this as regards the great points of faith, as above stated. Whatever be our private differences with the Roman Catholics, we may join