Page:Catholic Thoughts on the Bible and Theology.djvu/15

 Books commonly called The Bible contain special Revelations of the Will of, and the only written ones extant upon earth. They constitute a volume which is a Divine Supplement to the Laws of Nature and of Conscience: a body of Doctrines and of Precepts which, when rightly received, are able to make men wise unto salvation, and without which no man can be perfectly instructed in righteousness, or thoroughly furnished unto good works. These Writings therefore as a Whole are generically different from all others in character and authority: of incomparably greater dignity, of immeasurably higher worth, even emphatically Sacred: a special Divine Gift to man wholly inestimable, and one which it is impossible to regard with too much either of Reverence or of Gratitude. Indeed clearly on its first aspect there lies an impress of Divinity on the Bible not visible elsewhere: the Spirit of so moves upon the face of its pages, that compared with all other Scriptures, the Bible is Holy, they Profane. This Book is a Record not merely of the most valuable of man’s speculations and discoveries concerning Truth, but emphatically of Revelations and instructions concerning it: not merely an exposition of such laws and precepts as the reasonings and intuitions and sentiments of men have agreed to pronounce the wisest and the worthiest, but of such direct and special communications of the Divine Spirit to the spirits of individual men as disclose Purposes of, and Sanctions of Duty, and Promises of Help, which no man by searching could find out, but which it is the everlasting Life of man to take heed to, and his spiritual Death to disregard. And it is not only thus a Providential Depository of certain Revelations of truth and duty which have been made at sundry