The Purpose of the Papacy | Page 4

by a divine hand; and
segregate truth from error, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the
goats.
Christ promised as much as this, and if He keep not His promise, then
He can hold out no claim to be God, for though Heaven and earth may
pass away, God's words shall never pass away. That He did so promise
is quite evident; and may be proved, first, explicitly, and from His own
words, and secondly, implicitly, from the very necessity of the case;
and from the whole history of religious development. Cardinal
Newman, even before his reception into the Church, was so fully
persuaded of this, that he wrote: "If Christianity is both social and
dogmatic, and intended for all ages, it must, humanly speaking, have an
infallible expounder.... By the Church of England a hollow uniformity
is preferred to an infallible chair; and by the sects in England an
interminable division" (_Develop._, etc., p. 90). In the Catholic Church
alone the need is fully met.
The Church is established on earth by the direct act of God, and is set
"as an army in battle array". It exists for the express purpose of
combating error and repressing evil, in whatever form it may appear;
and whether it be instigated by the devil, or the world, or the flesh. But,
let us ask, Who ever heard of an army without a chief? An army
without a supreme commander is an army without subordination and
without law or order; or rather, it is not an army at all, but a rabble, a
mob.
The supreme head of Christ's army--of Christ's Church upon earth, is
our Sovereign Lord the Pope. Some will not accept his rule, and refuse
to admit his authority. But this is not only to be expected. It was
actually foretold. As they cried out, of old, to one even greater than the
Pope, "We will not have this man to reign over us" (Luke xix. 14), so

now men of similar spirit repeat the self-same cry, with regard to
Christ's vicar.
Nevertheless, wheresoever his authority is loyally accepted, and where
submission, respect and obedience are shown to him, there results the
order and harmony and unity promised by Christ: while, on the
contrary, where he is not suffered to reign there is disorder, rivalry and
sects.
To be able to look forward and to foresee such opposite results would
perhaps need a prophetic eye, an accurate estimate of human nature,
and a very nice balancing of cause and effect. It could be the
prognostication only of a wise, judicious, and observant mind. But we
are now looking, not forwards, but backwards, and in looking
backwards the case is reduced to the greatest simplicity, so that even a
child can understand; and "he that runs may read".
The simplest intelligence, if only it will set aside prejudice and pride,
and just attend and watch, will be led, without difficulty, to the
following conclusions: firstly, without an altogether special divine
support, no authority can claim and exercise infallibility in its teaching;
and secondly, without such infallibility in its teaching no continuous
unity can be maintained among vast multitudes of people, least of all
concerning dogmas most abstruse, mysteries most sublime and
incomprehensible, and laws and regulations both galling and
humiliating to human arrogance and pride.
It is precisely because the Catholic Church alone possesses such a
supreme and infallible authority that she alone is able to present to the
world that which follows directly from it, namely a complete unity and
cohesion within her own borders.
Yes! Strange to say: the Catholic Church to-day stands alone! There is
no rival to dispute with her, her unique and peerless position. Of all the
so-called Christian Churches, throughout the world, so various and so
numerous, and, in many cases, so modern and so fantastic, there is not
a single one that can approach her, even distantly, whether it be in (_a_)
the breadth of her influence, or in (_b_) the diversity and dissimilarity

of her adherents, or in (_c_) the number of her children, or in (_d_) the
extent of her conquests, or (_e_) in the absolute unity of her
composition.
Even were it possible to unite into one single body the great multitude
of warring sects, of which Protestantism is made up, such a body would
fall far short of the stature of her who has received the gentiles for her
inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for her possession (Ps.
ii. 8), and who has the Holy Ghost abiding with her, century after
century, in order that she may be "a witness unto Christ, in Jerusalem,
and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost parts of the
world" (Acts i. 8). But we cannot, even in