The letter of the written Word is dead without the spirit of interpretation, which alone unfolds its hidden meaning. Now this spirit is not granted to every Christian, but to the Church; in other words, to the priests. It is great presumption to maintain, that he who promised to be with his Church always to the end of the world, could abandon it to the power of error. It will be said, perhaps, that the doctrine and constitution of the Church are not the same as we find them in the sacred oracles. This is true; but the change is only apparent, relating to the form, and not to the substance. Moreover, the change is an advance. The living power of the Spirit has given reality to what exists in Scripture only in idea; it has embodied the sketches of the Word, put a finishing hand to these sketches, and completed the work of which the Bible had furnished only the first outlines. Scripture ought, therefore, to be understood in the sense determined by the Church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Here the Catholic doctors are divided. General councils, say some, and Gerson among the number, are the representatives of the Church. The pope, says others, is the depositary of the Spirit of interpretation; and no man is entitled to understand Scripture in a sense differing from that of the Roman pontiff. This was the opinion of Prierio. Such was the doctrine which the master of the sacred palace opposed to the rising Reformation. On the power of the pope and the Church he advanced propositions at which the most shameless flatterers of the court of Rome would have blushed. The following is one of the points which he maintains at the commencement of his tract:--"Whoever rests not in the doctrine of the Roman Church, and the Roman pontiff, as the infallible rule of faith, from which the Holy Scripture itself derives its force and authority, is a heretic."[426] [426] "A qua etiam Sacra Scriptura robur trahit et auctoritatem, hæreticus est (Fundamentum tertium.")