Page:Petri Privilegium - Manning.djvu/195

Rh tune? Is not this question already closed by the fact that God has thought it opportune to reveal it? Can it be permitted to us to think that what He has thought it opportune to reveal, it is not opportune for us to declare? It is true indeed that, in revealing the Faith, God in His wisdom and compassion was slow, deliberate, and gradual, measuring His light to the infirmities of the human intelligence, and preparing the minds of men for a fuller manifestation, both of His presence and His kingdom. But this divine procedure, binding as it may be on us in dealing with heathen nations who have never heard His name, is in no way binding, nay, is not even permissible, in dealing with those who have been baptized into the full revelation of faith. From them nothing may be kept back. With them no economy can be admitted. There is now no 'disciplina arcani' among the members of His mystical Body. They are illuminated to know 'the Truth as it is in Jesus' in all its fulness: 'that which you hear in the ear, preach ye upon the housetops.'

By 'opportune,' then, in the mind of the objector, must be meant something politic or diplomatic, some calculations of local expediency in respect to nations and governments. This sense of opportunity is proper to legislatures and cabinets in deliberating on public utilities and opinions; but in the Church of God, and in the truth of revelation, it is always opportune to declare what God has willed that man should know. Nay, more than opportune: if the infallibility of the Vicar of Jesus Christ be a doctrine of