Trinity Sunday. The Gospel. Matthew 28:18. Wednesday Meditation Plaine Path-way to Heaven ~ THOMAS HILL 1634

Wednesday Meditation 

The heathens hold that the more understanding and wisdom the more perfect men may be. These creatures of God, without the light of faith, may come to understand there is a God. According to this, St. Paul, writing to the Romans (and of the Romans, who were many of them such kind of men as having subdued the whole world unto them, more by their wisdom and policy than by force of arms), says: “They might have known there was a God, though invisible, by the visible creatures, and therefore not glorifying God accordingly, they were without excuse in that behalf.” This is the sum of his words.

And the wise man says in the Scripture (Wisdom 13:5): “By the greatness of the beauty of the creature, the Creator of them may be known.” This did many of the philosophers know. St. Jerome, writing to Paulinus, says Pythagoras the philosopher was put to banishment by the Athenians because he affirmed there was one God. And St. Augustine says that Socrates held there was one good and true God, and being accused hereof, was put to death. This did Plato and Aristotle find out by the light of natural reason.

But Aristotle went further and found out that there were certain immaterial substances, such as we call Angels or Spirits, subsisting in themselves without any corporeity or materiality at all, which he called Intellectual. And that they had these three faculties—Memory, Understanding, and Will—as men have. And knowing there were such substances, and that they were the most perfect of all other, he could not but think that God, which was the principal of all other things, was of that kind, and had those three faculties of memory, understanding, and will. And so he had an imperfect and obscure, confused knowledge of God, as he is indeed a Spirit with such a threefold faculty. But that these three were all of one nature and essence with God, and that they made three Persons and one God—that they could not come near, nor no man living ever can, by the light of natural reason.

And say we could, by the force of natural reason, attain unto the perfect knowledge thereof, or of the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, or of the Resurrection of our bodies, or any other supernatural mystery of our Religion, it would not avail us to salvation, unless we did assent unto it, not because we understand it by natural reason, but because God hath revealed it unto us. For without faith, as St. Paul testifieth, it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). And St. Gregory the Great telleth us: Where human reason giveth us an experiment, faith (that is to say, assent unto matters of faith for human experiment) hath no merit. Neither is it any honour to God, but rather a dishonour, to believe no further than we understand by natural reason or our senses—like St. Thomas, that would not believe unless he saw and felt. But to believe a supernatural verity because God hath said it, or a natural thing, not for human proofs, but for the authority of God, “captivating” (as St. Paul termeth it) our understanding unto the obedience of faith—that is the greatest honour we can do unto God, and so much the greater by how much the more difficult and unintelligible the thing is.

But in this point all the question is: how we may know what the things are that God hath revealed, and whether he hath revealed them or no, and what the true sense and meaning of them is—to wit, whether that which we call the Bible be the word of God, what be the books, and what the sense of them? In all these there is no such certain way in the world as the general consent of the whole Christian world, or the greater part thereof, from time to time—that is to say, the holy Catholic or universal Church.

There is a common proverb that the general voice of the people of God is the voice of God. A General Council is the general voice of the people of God, therefore the voice of God. A General Council representeth the universal or Catholic Church, therefore the voice of the Catholic Church is the voice of God.Of this have some of the Fathers of the Church, no less confidently than wisely, protested that if the Church err, they are contented to err with her, because it is impossible she should err—even in human reason. Or if she should err, it were a thing not beseeming God to condemn us for following her, it being the most prudential course we can take, without any comparison.

Yet must we not follow her out of the motive of human reason, but for that it is an article of our Faith, agreed upon and received from the Apostles of Christ, to believe the Catholic Church, which cannot deceive us, because Christ hath promised his Holy Spirit of truth to be always with it, to guide it into all truth. It is also called Holy—namely, the Holy Catholic Church. If it be holy, then it cannot err nor deceive us.And that these words of Christ to the Apostles (“I will send you the Spirit of truth, which shall remain with you forever and guide you into all truth”) were not meant to the Apostles only during their life (for they lived not forever), but to the Church forever after them, it appeareth plainly out of the words of Christ in another place. Where, after Christ had given the Apostles commission and command to go and preach the Gospel throughout the world, and baptize in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost (which was not given to them only, but to their successors also), he added these words: “And behold, I am with you all days unto the consummation of the world” (Matthew 28:20)—to wit, by sending the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of truth, to direct you into all truth. But the Apostles were not to continue all days to the end of the world; therefore he meant their successors also.

The Prophet Isaiah also calleth it a Holy way, and so easy to be found that very fools may find it out. Which must be understood of the Church, or Scriptures—not of the Scriptures, for they are hard to be understood, as St. Peter testifieth; therefore of the Church.

But as St. Paul said of the Romans (as aforesaid), that whereas they might have known God by the creatures, yet through the love of their own glory and other vices and vanities of the world, not willing to look seriously into the matter lest they should lose their worldly contentments, they vanished away in their foolish cogitations, and their hearts were so obscured that, to hold their own ways, they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the similitude of the image of corruptible men, and beasts, and birds, and serpents, adoring them for Gods—God giving them over for their punishment to their own desires.

So there be some that, though they may know by the Catholic Church undoubtedly and easily what God hath revealed to be believed, partly out of their own private prejudicate opinions (that the universal Church hath grossly erred and is become Antichristian, and the chief bishop thereof Antichrist), and partly out of the great liberty of the contrary doctrine which they are unwilling to lose, they vanish away in their cogitations, and lack that faith out of which there is no salvation. God giving them over for their punishment to their own desires, and taking the words of God not according to the sense of the Catholic Church, but according to their own private sense, do not only err in their faith but may, in some sense, be said to commit idolatry—making to themselves a false God, that is to say, another manner of God in his doctrine than he is, yea, to make him a liar, affirming him to say that which is false.Let us give humble and hearty thanks to God for making us members of his holy Catholic Church, which only is the teacher and keeper of the true faith, whereby we must be saved.