Page:Petri Privilegium - Manning.djvu/71

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tion as we do so, the English people will listen to us. They have no sympathy in accommodations or compromises. Downright truth, boldly and broadly stated, like the ring of true metal, wins their confidence. If we believe the Holy Spirit of God to guide and to speak through the Church, by whom shall we hear His voice if not by the Head of the Church, in whom the plenitude of authority resides? The intimate relation of this question with the deepest and most vital parts of religion may be seen from the fact that it belongs to the subject of Divine Faith. The infallibility of the Church is the ordinary medium through which the material object, that is, the doctrine, of Divine faith becomes known to us. It is, therefore, of the highest necessity that we should clearly understand what is that medium, or order, which God has ordained for the promulgation and perpetuity of His revelation. The dotes, or endowments, of the Church and the prerogatives of its head, as the teacher of the Church, enter therefore directly into the subject of Faith. They are not mere ecclesiastical, nor, as many say, constitutional or external questions. They involve the certainty upon which we know what God has revealed; and therefore, if in one aspect they may be included in the treatise De Ecclesia, they belong intrinsically to the treatise De Fide Divina. It was the violation of this Divine economy which let in the flood of error upon our country. It is the restoration of this Divine economy in the intellect and the