Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

160 THE SECOND MAN VERIFIED IN HISTORY.books. With these in her hand, or rather in herheart, she has directed and carried out that greatsystem of instruction which the Apostles laid downand established by their acts. For to her whatthey did was as sacred as what they said, orwhat they wrote ; and numberless acts of theirsconstituted her teaching originally, and have prolongedand continued it on since.For, besides the succession of men and thesuccession of doctrine, there is in her likewisethe succession of institutions. As chief of these ,but involving a number of subordinate rites, theApostles with their first oral teaching deliveredlikewise to the Church sacraments, instituted, notby them, but by their Lord Himself, which at onceembodied the truth taught by them, and conveyedthe grace by which that truth was to find a homein men's heart and mind. ISTo sooner was thefirst teaching of Peter at the head of the Apostlesuttered, and the gift of forgiveness of sins andof adoption disclosed, than three thousand personsreceived the double gift by the baptism whichfollowed. Thus they established in the Churchseven great rites, encompassing the whole of humanlife. The regenerating power which was thebeginning of the whole change that they sought towork in man was stored UD in one; the confirmingand developing it in a second ; the feeding andincreasing it in a third; the removal of obstaclesto it in a fourth; the supporting and restoring the