XIV. PROLEGOMENA. 



It is in respect to Authority that Catholicism 

 will be found to differ most essentially from 

 Heresy. The former is the Orthodoxy or genuine 

 Truth. It emanates from the Fountain of Truth : 

 and its criterion, as far as human judgment be 

 concerned, is the consensus of Apostolical 

 Council ; the latter is Ideology or particular 

 Belief, prompted by human passions, and, having 

 no criterion but individual judgment, always more 

 or less, and always variously fallible. Orthodoxy 

 includes the doctrine of a Supreme Director, and 

 the external Attestations of Sanctity which sup- 

 port our Faith, show it to have been the genuine 

 truth committed to the Apostolical Vicars by God. 

 Heresy implies a division from universal rule, 

 and consequently a warp, and its fruits show it 

 to result from individual defect of judgment, 

 yielding to the temptations of the Devil. This 

 will be made by and bye to appear more evident 

 from the adjutant proofs afforded by the etymology 

 of words. 



all sprung from individual minds, and consequently from defective 

 sources, every individual having some particular warp of judge- 

 ment somewhere. Hence, their infinite variations, as shown by 

 Bossuet. Catholic Doctrine on the contrary is that which has 

 been propounded to and tried by persons who severally possessed 

 every variety of judgment and virtue, namely, the learned 

 Fathers that composed the Councils of the Church, and who, 

 dift'ering in mental powers and in character, and on other subjects 

 in opinion, have nevertheless agreed in Faith. Therefore the 

 Catholic Doctrine is not only agreeable to the common sense of 

 mankind, but to the sense of a choice aristocracy of all varieties 

 of intellect, virtue, and talent, combined. 



