unreasonable unbelief any intelligence which shall reject its testimony. But the visible Church is not merely a human witness. It was instituted and is guided perpetually by God Himself, and is therefore a divine witness, ordained by God as the infallible motive of credibility, and the channel of His revelation to mankind.
I need hardly point out what errors are excluded by these definitions. The whole world outside the Catholic Church is full of doctrines diametrically contrary to these truths. It is affirmed that the reason of man is so independent of God, that He cannot justly lay upon it the obligation of faith; again, that faith and science are so identified that they have the same motives, and that there is neither need nor place in our convictions for the authority of God; again, that extrinsic evidence is of no weight, because men ought to believe only on their own internal experience or private inspiration; again, that all miracles are myths, and all supernatural evidences useless, because intrinsically incredible; once more, that we can only believe that of which we have scientific proof, and that it is lawful for us to call into doubt the articles of our faith when and as often as we will, and to submit them to a scientific analysis, in the meanwhile suspending our faith until we shall have completed the scientific demonstration.
The fourth and last Chapter is on the relation of faith to reason. In this three things are declared: first, that there are two orders of knowledge; secondly, that they differ as to their object; thirdly, that they differ as to their methods of procedure.
