on this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it."(115) Christ makes here a solemn prediction
that no error shall ever invade His Church, and if she fell into error the
gates of hell have certainly prevailed against her.

The Reformers of the sixteenth century affirm that the Church did fall
into error; that the gates of hell did prevail against her; that from the
sixth to the sixteenth century she was a sink of iniquity. The Book of
Homilies of the Church of England says that the Church "lay buried in
damnable idolatry for eight hundred years or more." The personal veracity
of our Savior and of the Reformers is here at issue, for our Lord makes a
statement which they contradict. Who is to be believed, Jesus or the
Reformers?

If the prediction of our Savior about the preservation of His Church from
error be false, then Jesus Christ is not God, since God cannot lie. He is
not even a prophet, since He predicted falsehood. Nay, He is an impostor,
and all Christianity is a miserable failure and a huge deception, since it
rests on a false Prophet.

But if Jesus predicted the truth when He declared that the gates of hell
should not prevail against His Church--and who dare deny it?--then the
Church never has and never could have fallen from the truth; then the
Catholic Church is infallible, for she alone claims that prerogative, and
she is the only Church that is acknowledged to have existed from the
beginning. Truly is Jesus that wise Architect mentioned in the Gospel,
"who built his house upon a rock; and the rain fell, and the floods came,
and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it
was founded upon a rock."(116)

Jesus sends forth the Apostles with plenipotentiary powers to preach the
Gospel. "As the Father," He says, "hath sent Me, I also send you."(117)
"Going therefore, teach all nations, teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you."(118) "Preach the Gospel to every
creature."(119) "Ye shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, and in all
Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth."(120)

This commission evidently applies not to the Apostles only, but also to
their successors, to the end of time, since it was utterly impossible for
the Apostles personally to preach to the whole world.

Not only does our Lord empower His Apostles to preach the Gospel, but He
commands, and under the most severe penalties,