first must not be confused with the last. A special kind of assent,
that is to say, the _assent of Divine Faith_ must be given to all
those doctrines which are proposed to us by the infallible voice of
the Church, as taught by Our Lord or the Apostles, and as contained in
the original deposit [_fidei Depositum_]. They comprise (_a_) all
things whatever which God has directly revealed; and (_b_) whatever
truth such revelation implicitly contains.

These implicit truths are deduced from the original revelation, very
much as any other consequence from its premisses. For example. It is a
truth directly revealed, that the _Holy Ghost is God_. But, since God
is to be adored: the further proposition:--_the Holy Ghost is to be
adored_; is also contained, though only implicitly, in revelation;
and is therefore, equally, of faith. So again; that Christ is man, is
a fact of revelation; but the further proposition--Christ has a true
body--though not explicitly stated, is implicitly affirmed in the
first proposition. All consequences, such as the above, which are seen
immediately and evidently to be contained in the words of revelation,
must be accepted as of faith. Other consequences, which are equally
contained in the original deposit, but which are not so readily
detected and deduced, _must be explicitly_ accepted as of faith, only
so soon as the Church has publicly and authoritatively declared them
to be so contained; but not before. Thus, to take an illustration, the
Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin is a fact contained from
the beginning, implicitly locked up, as it were, in the deposit of
faith, left by the Apostles. Were it not so it never could have been
defined; for the Church does not invent doctrines. She only transmits
them. Yet, this doctrine is not so clearly and so self-evidently
included, and lies not so luminously and unmistakably on the very
surface of revelation as to be at once perceptible to all. Hence,