have seen," as Jeremy Taylor would say, the sunshine lighting up a landscape or a noble building; the lines of beauty were there before, but the sunshine brought them out and made them glorious: in like manner the defined truth of Catholic faith lights up the face of Scripture, and makes many a feature, that seemed commonplace and uninteresting, thrill with meaning and be instinct with life. Protestants will talk of "the plain face of Scripture"; they will construe every text with painful literalness. Literalness, indeed, is the first consideration of an interpreter but there is much in Holy Writ beyond the literal, still more beyond the obvious meaning. To the eye of the Catholic, of "the spiritual man" who "judgeth" what is "spiritually examined (1 Cor. ii. 14, 15), the face of God's Word is full of majesty and subtle beauty. It is anything but plain.

4. Scripture Countenance

"Their favourite devotions to the Blessed Virgin and the Saints, the doctrines of Indulgences, and of Purgatory, as commonly held amongst them, find no countenance at all in the New Testament. A man cannot

be at home in the current Roman doctrine of good works,' and in St. Paul's Epistles" (p. 11).

Bishop Gore's book would gain in strength by the excision of the above rash words.

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Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee" (Luke i. 28).

"Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb (Luke i. 42).

"All generations shall call me blessed" (Luke i. 48).

"She brought forth her first-born son (Luke ii. 11).

"A great sign appeared in the heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. And she brought forth a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God, even to His throne" (Apoc. xii. 1, 5).

In these words the New Testament gives countenance to any amount of devotion to the Great Mother, short of. deification.

"But he himself shall as by fire" (1 Cor. iii. 15). of Catholic theology on

be saved, yet so The argument this passage

proceeds as follows: If those venially offending Corinthian teachers required to pass through fire before they could reach their salvation and final reward; then in default of the fire of the last day, of which immediately the Apostle speaks, coming upon them in their lifetime, and also in default of their furnishing any other satisfaction in their lifetime, some equivalent of purging fire must overtake after death all such debtors to God's justice. Like other Scriptural arguments, this argument must be taken in support of, and not wholly independently of, the tradition of the Catholic Church and her living speaking authority. Some New Testament countenance here, some probability, at least of the quality called "extrinsic," from authority of many commentators: nay, a sound intrinsic probability in the argument itself.

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The "current Roman doctrine of good works" may be read in the decrees of the sixth session of the Council of Trent. It distinguishes works done in the state of mortal sin from works done in the state of sanctifying grace. The former are of no avail for meriting justification or any heavenly reward. The first justification is ever gratuitous, never the reward of

merit. So the Roman doctrine, with St. Paul: "Not of any works in justice that we have done, but according to His mercy He hath saved us by the laver of regeneration" (Titus iii. 5): "And we, when we were dead in transgressions, He hath quickened with Christ... not of works, that no man may glory" (Eph. ii. 5, 9). But, once justified and living in sanctifying grace, a man may, by the aid of actual grace, do good works meritorious of heaven. So the Council teaches, and so St. Paul: "Who will render to every man according to his works to them who in patience of good work seek glory and honour and incorruption [i.e., who live in the state of grace], life everlasting" (Rom. ii. 6, 7): “Abounding in the work of the Lord at all times, knowing that your labour is not empty in the Lord" (1 Cor. xv. 58): "But now being justified from sin and made subject to God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification and the end life everlasting" (Rom. vi. 22).

I have known men, saturated with Roman doctrine, still quite "at home in St. Paul's Epistles." See Notes on St. Paul on Rom. iii. 27, 28; iv. 2–6 ; v. 1 ; xi. 6.

§ 5. Thou art Peter

It is "to provoke horsemen into the open " to challenge a Catholic on the great Petrine text, Matt. xvi. 16-19. So far as the words concern St. Peter personally, Bishop Gore explains them very well. "St. Peter... had just given expression to the great conviction which had been slowly growing up in the minds of the whole band. . . This outspoken confession of His divine mission and nature Christ meets and confirms with His most solemn benediction. Blessed art thou (so we may venture to paraphrase it), Simon BarJonah: for this conviction is not derived from weak human nature, it is a supernatural communication from above; and in virtue of this thy profession of it I also

II omit the clause acting as the spokesman of the other Apostles. I allow that it expresses a view held by Catholics, e.g., by Father Coleridge. But (and this ought to tell with the Bishop) the view is not in Scripture. We read of no deliberation among the Apostles what they should reply, nothing to indicate that St. Peter came forward like the foreman of a jury delivering a verdict. He was sufficiently accustomed to speak for himself without prompting, e.g., Matt. xiv. 28; xvi. 22; xviii. 21; xxvi. 33; cf. John xxi. 7. And the answer was directed to him alone.