to anything definite and precise. Yea, which utterly fail and break
down just at the critical moment, when men are dividing and
disagreeing among themselves, and most needing a prompt and clear
decision, which may close up the breach and bring them together.

No! The decisions of the authority set up by Christ are in very
truth--just what we expect to find them--_viz._, clear, ringing
and definite. They divide light from darkness, as 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