e that St. Paul, the inspired Apostle, in the very first
century of the Christian era, instructed Titus to construe and
administer the law committed to his charge. After warning Titus that
there are "many vain talkers and deceivers," St. Paul commands him "to
rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in faith". He adds
further: "These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke, _with all
authority_". But this was not all. He was not only to decide who were
the "vain talkers and deceivers". Nor was he simply "to exhort and
rebuke them sharply, and with all authority," that they might become
"sound in the faith," but if they persisted after the first and second
admonition, he was also to reject them, and thrust them out of the
Church, as heretics. "Reject a heretic, after the first and second
admonition" (Tit. iii. 10). Now Titus was neither an Apostle nor a
Pope, but a simple Bishop. If then such were the powers invested in
him, how much more fully still must this authority be inherent in the
Vicar of Christ himself, who is the supreme head upon earth of the
entire Church of God.

It is this prompt amputation of the diseased members, before the
hideous canker has time to spread, that has kept the Church of God
pure to this day, while heretical bodies have fallen into greater and
greater spiritual decay. It is because she fearlessly and resolutely
insists upon all her children accepting the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth, that she presents to the world, century
after century, with miraculous clearness and perspicuity, the Divine
hall-mark of unity.

6. Outside the true Church of God there is no recognised voice strong
enough to enforce any uniformity of belief. Though the Pope's
authority was acknowledged throughout England for over one thousand
years, yet at the time of the so-called Reformation, that Voice of
God, speaking through Peter, was admitted no longer. Hence, as
Cardinal Manning most truly observes: "The old forms of religious
thought are now passing away in England. The rejection of the Divine
Voice has let in the flood of opinion; and opinion has generated
scepticism; and scepticism has brought on contentions without end.
What seemed so solid once, is disintegrated. It is dissolving by the
internal action of the principle from which it sprung. The critical
unbelief of dogma has now reached to the foundation of Christianity,
and to the veracity of Scripture. Such is the world the Catholic
Chu