The Key to the Building
The Love of Truth and Firm Belief in the Incarnation
It may be said with reason, that at the present day there is hardly a word in the language which is so abused, perverted, wrested to so many wrong and anomalous meanings as the word truth.
It would be difficult indeed to point to anything of which there are so many counterfeits and delusive semblances as objective truth. And what is a most unseemly paradox, is, that the meaning of the word appears to have been more severely handled, more shockingly mangled in what is supposed to be the sphere of religion than in any other sphere. For, within the whole range of what is called revelation, there is scarcely a doctrine of which contradictory statements have not been pressed upon the acceptance of the Christian community for belief.
“As if,” observes Cardinal Manning, “truth were a sort of coin that they (men) may stamp and change, and vary its die, and fix its value, and make it in metal or paper as they will. They treat truth as one of the elements of human barter.”1
It is strange, is it not? that many, who detest inconsistency in every other department of life, reconcile themselves to it so easily in the field of Divine revelation. In the Courts of Law, in the Houses of Parliament, in the ordinary transactions of everyday life, when two contradictory statements are put forward, men say at once—if one is true the other must be false. Nor are they content with merely allowing this; as a rule they take some trouble to find out which statement contains the truth, which the falsehood. And the amount of effort they make in that direction varies according to the importance they attach to the matter which is brought under their notice. Yet multitudes of people, who profess to be Christians, listen contentedly day by day to contradictory propositions about the doctrines which their Church propounds, and apparently use little or no exertion to reach a safe solution of the case. In fact they seem as little concerned about the matter, as if the contradiction had merely reference to the making of a canal or the cutting down of a forest away in the wilds of Australia.
What then is the natural inference? Is it not this?—that in their list of important things religion or revealed truth holds a very inferior place. Instead of occupying the highest place, as it ought to do, since it concerns their most momentous (because their eternal) interests, it, in the case of too many, so far at least as appearances go, occupies the lowest.
This being so, it is well to look into the question in the light of the teaching of Him from whom alone all genuine revelation or religious truth can come—we mean Christ the Incarnate Son of God. He said: “For this was I born, and for this came I into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth.”2
Until people have viewed truth in the judgment of its Divine Author, the search after it, in the world of religion, will be only half-hearted and apathetic.
To realise its incomparable value, we must look at it, not from our own standpoint but from that of the Redeemer who is its everlasting and unfailing fountain; who alone sees all things in their true light, and adjusts them in their proper proportions.
Happily, some of the words which He, the Incarnate God, spoke in reference to it, are still on record. These words form the best and most adequate criterion—a criterion unmistakable and incontrovertible—as to the sublime, the sovereign place which truth occupies in His own mind, and the correspondingly exalted place which He wishes it to occupy in the mind of the whole human race. He was arraigned as a criminal before Pilate. In answer to the question of Pilate He said: “For this was I born, and for this came I into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth.”
Here was a declaration, public and emphatic, solemn and Divine, and that on a matter of burning importance. It was made within the narrow limits of a Jerusalem Judgment Hall, and in the presence of a comparatively small audience; but it was meant for the whole world, and for the whole world of all generations; not merely collectively and in the aggregate, but for each human soul, separately and singly, down to the consummation of the world.
How striking, how Divinely thrilling the words were! No saying more far-reaching or more awe-inspiring ever fell from the lips of Him who came to be the light of the nations. No language that He ever uttered brings out into more striking prominence the ineffable, the incomprehensible price which He set upon truth. God though He was, He could not lift it to a higher level, nor could He say anything more ennobling and inspiring in its praise.
He spoke of it as if it was a portion of His own Being—a communication of His Divine nature—as a thing which had its seat in the heaven of heavens, yet destined to be imparted to mortal man on earth—as an illumination coming down from the eternal throne, to give light to see the face of the Godhead, so far as that Divine face can be seen in this life of shadows and gloom. He held it up like a torch before the eyes of the world as a “something” of which He Himself, the Eternal Son of the Eternal Father, was the visible, tangible, perpetual embodiment. And well may we say that it was. For that truth was nothing less than the Creator known, known with true knowledge in the fulness of His Divine attributes, and known with true knowledge in His varied and multitudinous relations to His creatures.
“Truth,” says St. Augustine, “is God Himself, who is the primal source of life, and the primal essence, as He is the highest wisdom. For He is that unchangeable truth, who is rightly termed ‘the law of all arts, and the art of the Almighty Artificer’.”3
He, Himself, we repeat, was its perfect and permanent personification, a personification at once Divine and human: and as human, at once visible and articulate.
He said, after the Last Supper: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by Me.”4 Yes, He was the truth and therefore He was the way—the straight and the only way to life, to that life supernatural and everlasting which was a sharing of His own. And on that same solemn occasion—that is, after the Last Supper—when He raised His eyes to His Eternal Father, and prayed for His disciples, He expressed the same idea in words of similar import: “This is life everlasting, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent”.5 It was but equivalent to saying, ‘This is eternal life, that they know the truth—the unchanging and unchangeable truth—that truth, namely, which I, Myself, Thy only begotten Son, became incarnate and appeared on earth to proclaim “For this was I born, and for this came I into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth.”
Here, in the presence of this Divine pronouncement, our attitude can be only one of adoring wonder at seeing truth, which by many is thought so lightly of in the sphere of religion, raised aloft to an elevation so sublime, so heavenly; deified, as it were, by the lips of Him who came into the world to be its living, visible, palpable exponent.
In this we need have no fear of exaggerating; for, if by exaggeration is meant the making a thing appear greater in description than it is in reality, then, exaggeration of the value of truth in the eyes of Him who is its source is an utter impossibility. Is not His Incarnation a marvellous mystery of Divine condescension? Are not His human birth, His passing through the slow growth of infancy, His moving in visible form amongst His creatures, His preaching, His privations, miracles, His dying, rising again and ascending—are not these the things which have compelled the unceasing wonder of angels and of men? Yet He would have us look upon all these soul-stirring mysteries as the only adequate standard by which we are to measure the price which He fixed upon truth. Sublime indeed, Divinely sacred must that thing be which brought Him down from heaven, that He, Himself, personally, with His own lips, and by His own act, might make a revelation of it, and draw upon it, or strive to draw upon it, the eyes of all the nations of the earth.
Must it not have stood out transcendently before Him as a treasure of infinite value, when He would not entrust the function of unfolding it to angel or archangel, to cherubim or seraphim, but would come Himself directly and in person to make its light shine upon the souls that were made to His image, and that He was about to redeem by His death?6
Let us contemplate Him as He stands in the Prætorium of Pilate—let us listen to the solemn sound of His Divine voice as it speaks the weighty and memorable words: “For this was I born, and for this came I into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth”. And then in the light of this tremendous utterance, let us ask: Has truth no objective reality in His eyes? Is it a matter of small concern to Him whether the world believes what is true or what is false, and that even in the field of His revelation?
Who can say, in the face of this Divine asseveration, that what is truth before the eye of heaven to one may be falsehood to another; and that it may be so even with the absolute leave and willing consent of Him who is acknowledged by all Christians to be the fountain of all that can be called true?
Have those, who in this way look upon truth as a flexible thing, which can be twisted into any shape according to “the complexion of the mind” that contemplates it, ever duly weighed the momentous import of this striking and emphatic pronouncement? Surely they have not. It is impossible to resist the conviction, that if its full significance had been thoroughly brought home to the thoughts of all, had been vividly realised and universally and conscientiously acted upon, the purity and unity of truth would never have been tampered with, schism would never have torn away a member from the true Church (wherever or whichever she has been), nor would heresy have ever raised its head within her pale.
It makes clear to evidence, that, granted the fact of the creation of man, and granted the destined salvation of man’s immortal soul through faith, the mission or work of bearing testimony to the truth, that is, of promulgating it over the earth, came in the Divine order of important things immediately next to the truth itself. If He, the Eternal Son, came down from the Father’s bosom, took a human body and a human soul, appeared in the guise of man, lived, suffered, bled, died, rose again, ascended, and did all this for a definite purpose, surely that purpose must have had in His mind, not merely an importance of the gravest kind, but one that reached as closely as could be to the infinite.
Here then is the Redeemer’s valuation of truth. It could not be greater. Even though He taxed His infinite wisdom to the furthest limits, it would be impossible for Him to give a higher estimate of its price. How then can we imagine that He could allow that treasure, which was so precious in His eyes, and which He took such pains to unfold to the world, to become the plaything of men’s whims and fancies; to be distorted and torn to pieces by the action of man’s private judgment?
But now comes the question: What was this truth on which He laid such overwhelming emphasis, and the desire to announce which, led Him to embrace the numberless humiliations implied in His Incarnation? Had it any objective reality, or had it not? Was it the vague, chameleon-like thing which some seem to consider it to have been? Was it a thing which could be lawfully subjected to that diluting process called “compromise”? Was it an object which when looked at from one point of view might mean one thing, and when looked at from another might mean something entirely different, or even distinctly contradictory?
Was it the indefinite number of doctrines implied by that word which to certain superficial minds is at present so popular and fashionable—“comprehensiveness”? Was it a something about which He who was its Author could allow or tolerate two opposite schools of thought—schools that gave it diametrically opposite meanings?
Was it a thing which, under a particular set of circumstances, could be regarded as being in conformity with right reason, and under different circumstances could be regarded as in direct opposition to right reason?
Was it a thing which men might capriciously cleave in two, and which, when thus cloven, might mean in its first half, one set of doctrines to one set of men, and in its remaining half, the opposites or contradictories to another set of men? Or, that we may bring the question nearer to the bar of conscience, was it an elastic or variable thing which one man could conscientiously believe to be right, and which another with equal freedom and equal safety to his soul could believe to be wrong, according as prepossession, early prejudice or natural inclination influenced their opinions? Or further still, to express the idea in yet more concrete form: Did He wish to have it understood that this truth, which He came into the world to promulgate, could mean, when looked at in one direction, that there were Three Persons in the Trinity, truly distinct and really co-equal, that the Second Person became Incarnate; and that when looked at in another direction could mean the negations of both these fundamental mysteries?
Now, we must come to an understanding about the matter. If what He has here dignified by the name of truth was a thing such as we have just described, it would have been absolutely meaningless on His part to be born and to come into the world to give testimony to it. Such a mission for Him would be a contradiction, would be a lowering of the Godhead, would be totally unworthy of Him, utterly irreconcilable with the respect He owed to the dignity of His Divine nature. It would mean that He condescended to go all these rounds—if we may so speak—that He was born and came into the world expressly to promulgate a chimera, a nebula, a thing which has no objective reality, either in His own mind or in the mind of any of His creatures. It could not tend in any way to promote His glory; it would tend rather in the opposite direction; would multiply doubts instead of dissipating them, would leave the world in darkness as dense as that hitherto prevailing; it could only have the effect of making confusion still worse confounded.
We repeat then the question:—
What was the meaning the word “truth” had in His mind when He spoke it that day, the day of His Crucifixion, in the Prætorium of Pilate? Did He not mean the revelation which He had come from heaven purposely to make, which He had made in part personally already, which was contained in the great commission: “Going, teach all nations”—the revelation of which His Church was to be always and everywhere the “pillar and the ground”? Did He not mean the revelation which would enable His people to see the Godhead in the right light, which would teach the truth and nothing but the truth about the Father, about Himself (the Son), and about the Divine Spirit; that revelation which would redound to the glory of the Trinity; that revelation on the knowledge of and belief in which would depend the salvation of the souls made to the Divine image; that revelation which was to form the subject-matter of faith—the faith without which it would be impossible to find favour before the eye of heaven? Did He not mean the whole of that deposit of explicit, definite doctrine which He had decreed from the beginning to make known to the world through the preaching of His Apostles, and which His Divine Spirit would continue for ever to teach and explain when His own visible presence had been withdrawn to heaven?
Yes; this is evidently what He meant, if we are to judge by His words, which are both clear and definite. He did not say, He had come to give testimony about a doubt, a guess, a conjecture, a supposition, an opinion; but about truth—stern, inflexible, determinate truth, which could not change any more than His own essence; for He Himself was its Divine incorporation. Here then is the nature of the truth of which He spoke. Here the value He set upon it. Here the importance He attached to the promulgation of it. Never, till we have measured the mysteries of the Godhead, of the Incarnation, of Redemption, of the Beatific Vision, shall we be able to realise adequately the incomprehensible preciousness of truth in the Divine eyes, since for its sake, and expressly on its account, He that was God descended from heaven, “was made flesh and dwelt amongst us”. “For this was I born, and for this came I into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth.”
Such was the importance He attached to truth in that ever memorable hour, when the word fell from His lips in the Jerusalem Judgment Hall. Had He ever attached less importance to it at any previous period? Was He ever to attach less to it at any subsequent one? Does He take less interest in it now than He did then? Has the love He had for it on that day gradually declined with passing years, until in the present generation He is as much pleased with what is false as with what is true, and looks upon truth and falsehood as practically synonymous? In a word, could He set a different value upon it at different times? He could not do so without changing; and change in Him is impossible. For He it is of whom it is written: “Yesterday, and to-day: and the same for ever”.7
But could it be said that it possessed any value at all in His eyes, if He did not leave some means of giving infallible testimony to it when His glorified Humanity had disappeared from the earth?
We use emphatically the phrase infallible testimony; for anything less would be useless, would be, we might say, a contradiction, since testimony that was liable to be mistaken could only have the effect of changing truth into conjecture—of turning what was objectively true into what would be subjectively doubtful.
This book is meant to help those, who are not in possession of that truth already, to search after and to find it.
But the search after truth in the province of revelation may be said to be practically the same as the search after the plan of the Church, as that plan existed in the mind of Christ. For Christ established His Church to give testimony to the truth, and inspired His Apostles to call her “the pillar and the ground of truth”. On the other hand, it would be mere waste of time to trace such plan, unless Christ Himself were believed to be the one true God, the God of God, and Light of Light. If He were not God, the pattern would be no more than human; and being human, there could be no obligation to belong to the Church which was its visible realisation. It is for these reasons that, as has been already foreshadowed by the title of this introduction, full and firm belief in the Incarnation in the fullest sense of that great mystery, together with a sincere love of truth, is the necessary and the only “Key to the Building”.
Without such belief, all argument in behalf of a Divine design of a Church is like writing on the water, or preaching high philosophy to an assembly of the deaf and dumb. We say, belief, full and firm. Half belief, truncated belief, belief which falls short of the mark, or what may be called “make believe,” will not do. Any creed which “dissolves Christ,” i.e., which refuses to recognise Him as true God, as well as true Man, excludes thereby the idea of a Divine exemplar of a Church.
But it may be said that it is unnecessary to emphasise such conditions or limitations, seeing that in these countries all, who call themselves Christians, believe with genuine faith in the Godhead of Him whom they style their Redeemer. We wish it were so; but it is not. And the fact that it is not, is the reason why, in the first part of the second chapter, an effort is made to fix attention on His Divinity and on the consequent infinitude of His Divine attributes. We do not intend to treat that great mystery controversially; but we desire the vivid recollection of it, on the part of the reader, to accompany us throughout.
Before, however, entering upon that matter, we wish to point to the state of religious feeling or tone of thought which, at the present juncture, makes it both useful and exceptionally opportune to emphasise the existence of a pre-conceived Divine design of a Church. We allude to that tone of thought which—if we are to judge from the numbers who give frequent and loud expression to it—prevails widely in non-Catholic denominations. This will be the subject of the coming chapter.
