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I. We have received the totality of God s revelation and have been enlightened by the infused gift of faith, yet we are not therefore rendered self-sufficing, infallible, and exempt from all danger of error. There is need, further, of a guardian for that revelation and a guide for our belief. Evil besets good at every step; errors intrude themselves into the domain of faith; that which is holiest is liable to be perverted to our destruction. Doctrine goes through a process of development; new cases arise to which it is not easy to apply the old principles; laws need to be explained, extended, modified; on each of these occasions we are in danger of taking a wrong line, and a mistake may have very serious effects. An external authority is required for the administration and maintenance of truth just as much as for its original transmission to us. The individual is not capable of fulfilling these functions for himself; God does not help him to do so when there are delegates duly commissioned for the purpose. The pious eunuch under the influence of grace was reading the Word of God; when asked by St. Philip if he understood, he humbly answered: "How can I unless some one show me?" (Acts viii. 31). The devout centurion, Cornelius, and the destined Apostle of the Gentiles, although enjoying direct revelations from God, were yet directed to submit to appointed men for their instruction in the faith, so "that no flesh should glory in His sight" (1 Cor. i. 29). No man is a judge in his own case. Self-sufficiency is the worst of all guides. Follow humbly the Church which God has made the judge of faith, lest you become the sport of your own fancies and of Satan.
II. The Word of God's revelation is, like all His mysteries, recondite and obscure. The books of Scripture have had to be examined, collected, certified and given to us. We cannot do this for ourselves; the opinions of men have varied about it; it only remains that we submit ourselves to an authority chosen by ourselves, or to a public world- (Page 153) wide authority appointed by God. Further, in Scripture "are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures to their destruction" (2 Pet. iii. 16). An authoritative interpreter is needed, for "no prophecy of the Scripture is made by private interpretation" (2 Pet. i. 20). The interpretation of the law belongs to the legislator as much as does the law itself. The written revelation has been outside the reach of the great bulk of mankind; and those who have had access to it have seldom had at once the leisure, the abilities, and the good-will to make out its interpretation. Without the appointed interpreter the divine revelation is an insoluble enigma, there is no check on individual vagaries, and the impossibility of reasonable agreement and certainty must lead to the entire rejection of revealed truth. How happy are you to know the authority which God has appointed!
III. The Word of God further is liable to be counterfeited, misrepresented, misapplied, so as to render apparent support to falsehood and irreligion. Satan, we are told, passes himself off as an angel of light, and his deceptions as divine truths, and many men so accept him, though meaning well themselves. There are false prophets on earth too, who are as industrious as Satan in perverting truth and judgment. "They prophesy falsely to you in My name: and I have not sent them, saith the Lord" (Jer. xxix. 9). Every heresy professes to speak in the name of the Lord, and quotes the words of God in testimony to its errors. Divine truth is misrepresented and calumniated, as it was in the person of Jesus before the Sanhedrim; and is denounced as being a blasphemy against the Most High, or treason against the laws of knowledge, progress, liberty and holiness. These machinations are sufficient to deceive well-nigh even the elect. Our weakness requires the support and guidance of some visible authority qualified to "try the spirits if they be of God" (1 John iv. 1). With this divine aid alone are you guaranteed against deception.
Meditations on Christian Dogma,
Right Rev. James Bellord, D. D.,
The Newman Press, 1961
