…when Christ had come, suffered, and ascended, He was henceforth ever near us, ever at hand, even though He was not actually returned, ever scarcely gone, ever all but come back.
P.S. VI 242 (29.11. and 6.12.1840)
Our Divine Master might have communicated to us heavenly truths without telling us that they came from Him, as it is commonly thought He has done in the case of heathen nations ; but He willed the Gospel to be a revelation acknowledged and authenticated, to be public, fixed, and permanent ; and accordingly, as Catholics hold, He framed a Society of men to be its home, its instrument, and its guarantee. The rulers of that Association are the legal trustees, so to say, of the sacred truths which He spoke to the Apostles by word of mouth. As He was leaving them, He gave them their great commission, and bade them “teach” their converts all over the earth, “to observe all things whatever He had commanded them;” and then He added, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.”
Diff. II 322 (27.12.1874)
They had a duty put upon them of teaching their Master’s words, a duty which, they could not fulfil in the perfection which fidelity required, without His help ; therefore came His promise to be with them in their Performance of it. Nor did that promise of supernatural help end with the Apostles personally, for He adds, “to the consummation of the world,” implying- that the Apostles would have successors, and engaging that He would be with those successors as He had been with them.
Diff. II 322 – 323 (27.12.1874)
… as, the essence of all religion is authority and obedience, so the distinction between natural religion and revealed lies in this, that the one has a subjective authority, and the other an objective. Revelation consists in the manifestation of the Invisible Divine Power, or in the substitution of the voice of a Lawgiver for the voice of conscience. The supremacy of Apostle, or Pope, or Church, or Bishop, is the essence of revealed ; and when such external authority is taken away, the mind falls back again of necessity upon that inward guide which it possessed even before Revelation was vouchsafed. Thus, what conscience is in the system of nature, such is the voice of Scripture, or of the Church, or of the Holy See, as we may determine it, in the system of Revelation. It may be objected, indeed, that conscience is not infallible ; it is true, but still it is ever to be obeyed.
An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 86 (1845)
The LORD JESUS CHRIST gave HIS SPIRIT to His Apostles ; they in turn laid their hands on those who should succeed them ; and these again on others; and so the sacred gift has been handed down to our present Bishops, who have appointed us [priests] as their assistants, and in some sense representatives … Now how is he [the Bishop] able to give these great gifts ? Whence is his right ? … Has he any right, except as having received the power from those who consecrated him to be a Bishop ? He could not give what he had never received. It is plain then that he but transmits ; and that the Christian Ministry is a succession. And if we trace back the power of ordination from hand to hand, of course we shall come to the Apostles at last. We know we do, as a plain historical fact ; and therefore all we, who have been ordained Clergy, in the very form of our ordination acknowledged the doctrine of the APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. And for the same reason, we must necessarily consider none to be really ordained who have not thus been ordained.
Tracts I, 1, 2.3. (9.9. 1833)
The most obvious answer, then, to the question, why we yield to the authority of the Church in the questions and developments of faith, is, that some authority there must be if there is a revelation given, and other authority there is none but she. A revelation is not given, if there be no authority to decide what it is that is given. Nor must it be forgotten in confirmation, that Scripture expressly calls the Church “the pillar and ground of the Truth,” and promises her as by covenant that “the Spirit of the Lord that is upon her, and His words which He has put in her mouth shall not depart out of her mouth, nor out of the mouth of her seed, nor out of the mouth of her seed’s seed, from henceforth and for ever.” (1 Tim 3.15 ; Is 59.21)
An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine 88-89(1845)
… if development must be, then, whereas Revelation is a heavenly gift, He who gave it virtually has not given it, unless He has also secured it from perversion and corruption, in all such development, as comes upon it by the necessity of its nature, or, in other words, … that intellectual action through successive generations, which is the organ of development, must, so far forth as it can claim to have been put in charge of the Revelation, be in its determinations infallible.
An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine 92 (1845)
… since the process of defining truth is human, it is open to the chance of error; what Providence has guaranteed is only this, that there should be no error in’ the final step, in the resulting definition or dogma.
Diff. II 322 – 323 (27.12.1874)
… by promising her infallibility in her formal teaching, He indirectly protected her from serious error in worship and political action also. This aid, however, great as it is, does not secure her from all dangers as regards the problem which she has to solve ; nothing but the gift of impeccability granted to her authorities would secure them from all liability to mistake in their conduct, policy, words and decisions, in her legislative and her executive, in ecclesiastical and disciplinarian details ; and such a gift they have not received.
V.M. I xlii-xliii (1877)
… our certainty that the Apostolical succession of Bishops in the Catholic Church has no flaw in it, and that the validity of the Sacraments is secure, in spite of possible mistakes and informalities in the course of 1800 years, rests upon our faith that He who has decreed the end has decreed the means, – that He is always sufficient for His Church, – that, if He has given us a promise ever to be with us, He will perform it.
V.M, I lxxxiv-lxxxv (1877)