Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/320

Rh lously, through the organization of the Church on its members and no others; and on them, not because they were men, but instruments of the Church; not in proportion to a man's gifts, or the use of his gifts, but as he stood high or low in the Church. The humblest priest had a little inspiration, enough to work the greatest of miracles; the bishop had more; the Pope, as head of the Church, must be infallibly inspired, so that he could neither act wrong, think wrong, nor feel wrong.

The Absolute Religion and Morality necessarily sets out from the absolute source, the spirit of God in the soul revealing truth. The Catholic Church, on the contrary, starts from a finite source, the limited work of inspired men, namely, the Traditional Word preserved in Scripture and the unscriptural tradition, both written and not written. But then, laying down this indisputable truth, that a book must be interpreted by the same spirit in which it is written, and therefore that a book written by miraculous and superhuman inspiration can be understood only by men inspired in a similar way, and limiting the requisite inspiration to itself, it assumed the office of sole interpreter of the Scriptures; refused the Bible to the laymen, because they, as uninspired, could not understand it, and gave them only its own interpretation. Thus it attempted to mediate between mankind and the Bible.

Then again, relying on the unscriptural tradition preserved in the Fathers, the Councils, the organization and memory of the Church, it makes this of the same authority as the Scriptures themselves, and so claims divine sanction for doctrines which are neither countenanced by “human Reason,” as true, nor “divine Revelation,” as contained in the Bible. This is a point of great importance, as it will presently appear.

Now the Catholic Church was logically consistent with itself in both these pretensions. Each individual Church, at first, received what Scripture it saw fit, and interpreted the Word as well as it could. Next the synods decreed for the mass of Churches both the canon of Scripture and the doctrine it contained. The Catholic Church continued to exercise these privileges. Then again, taking the common notion, the Church had a logical and speculative basis for its claim to inspiration, though certainly none in