ay; that there is no assignable
point of time when it was not believed, no assignable point at which the
belief was introduced; that the records of past ages fade away and
vanish _in_ the belief; that in proportion as past ages speak at all,
they speak in one way, and only fail to bear a witness, when they fail
to have a voice. What stronger testimony can we have of a past fact?

Now evidence such as this have we for the Catholic doctrines which
Ambrose, Leo, or Gregory maintained; they have never and nowhere _not_
been maintained; or in other words, wherever we know anything positive
of ancient times and places, there we are told of these doctrines also.
As far as the records of history extend, they include these doctrines as
avowed always, everywhere, and by all. This is the great canon of the
_Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus_, which saves us from the
misery of having to find out the truth for ourselves from Scripture on
our independent and private judgment. He who gave Scripture, also gave
us the interpretation of Scripture; and He gave the one and the other
gift in the same way, by the testimony of past ages, as matter of
historical knowledge, or as it is sometimes called, by Tradition. We
receive the Catholic doctrines as we receive the canon of Scripture,
because, as our Article expresses it, "_of their authority" there "was
never any doubt in the Church_."

We receive them on Catholic Tradition, and therefore they are called
Catholic doctrines. And that they are Catholic, is a proof that they are
Apostolic; they never could have been universally received in the
Church, unless they had had their origin in the origin of the Church,
unless they had been made the foundation of the Church by its founders.
As the separate successions of bishops in various countries have but one
common origin, the Apostles, so what has been handed down through these
separate successions comes from that one origin. The Apostolic College
is the only point in which all the lines converge, and from which they
spring. Private traditions, wandering unconnected traditions, are of no
authority, but permanent, recognised, public, definite, intelligible,
multiplied, concordant testimonies to one and the same doctrine, bring
with them an overwhelming evidence of apostolical origin. We ground the
claims of orthodoxy on no powers of reasoning, however great, on the
credit of no names, however imposing, but on an external fact, on an
argum