890 PART in. Cu. XIV. — VOCATION.
help the matter. A place outside of the faith of the universal Church is a very unpleasant position. It is, moreover, unsafe and untenable. The whole Church, led and taught by the Spirit of Truth, cannot be wroncr, and the metaphysicians and theorists alone right. The error of the Papists as to the authority of the Church as a teacher, was twofold : first, in rendering it paramount to the Scriptures ; and secondly, in understanding by the Church, not the body of Christ filled by his Spirit, but the mass of unconverted wicked men gathered with the true people of God within the pale of an external organization. With them the Church consists of that external commonwealth of which the Pope is the head, and to which all belong who acknowledge his authority. It is a matter of very small moment what such a body may believe. But if we understand by the Church the ao;o;reorate of the true children of God, men renewed, guided, and taught by the Holy S])irit, then what they agree in believing, must be true. This universality of belief is a fact which admits of no rational solution, except that the doctrine thus believed is revealed in the Scriptures, and taught bv the Spirit. This argument is analogous to that for the being of God founded upon the general belief of the existence of a Supreme Being among all nations. It is a philosophical maxim that " What all men believe must be true." This principle does not apjjly to the facts of history or science, the evidence of which is present only to the minds of the few. But it does apply to all facts, the evidence of which is contained either in the constitution of our nature or in a common external revelation. If what all men believe must be accepted as a truth revealed in the constitu- tion of human nature, what all Christians believe must be ac- cepted as a truth taught by the Word and the Spirit of God. The fact that there are many tlieoretical, speculative, or practical athe- ists in the world, neither invalidates nor weakens the argument for the being of God, founded upon the general convictions of men ; so neither does the fact that theorists and speculative theologians deny the possibility of infant regeneration either invalidate or weaken the argument for its truth, founded on the faith of the Church Universal. But if infants may be subjects of regenera- tion, then the influence by which regeneration is effected is not a moral suasion, but the simple volition of Him whose will is omnip- otent.
Argument from Analogy.
2. A second argument, although most weight}'-, is nevertheless very difficult adequately to present. Happily its force does not