The faith of our forefathers: an examination of Archbishop Gibbons's "Faith of our fathers."

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

Introduction i

I. The Blessed Trinity, the Incarnation, etc 7

Preface

The preparation of the following pages, undertaken at the earnest request of the Assistant Bishop of Maryland, has been a task of no little difficulty, owing to the character of the work under examination. I thought I knew something of the windings-in-and-out of Roman controversialists ; but the Archbishop's book, in this respect, goes beyond any that has fallen under my observation. The unscholarly way, too, in which he cites his authorities, particularly on important points, makes it exceedingly difficult to follow him up. For instance, on page 245 we have the Reference, *' Blue- Laws'' (!) ; on page 252, '' The Ottoman and Spanish Empires, by Leopold Ranke ;'' on page 371, '' Systema Theol. " (of Leibnitz), *' Remarques sur TOlympe" (of Voltaire), '* Emile" (of Rousseau); and, on other pages, a score or two of other, similar, references ; in every instance, without chapter and verse. I do not complain of his citing authorities at second hand ; but he should at least let us have chapter and verse of the

VI PREFACE,

original, as given by his second-hand authorities, when those authorities are of his own Communion.

But slovenhness of Reference is not by any means the worst fault of the book. Let the reader turn to pages 113 and 114, 336-338, 341, 342, of what follows, and read what I have there laid before him, and . • •

But the pity of it, lago ; the pity of it 1 Easton, Maryland, June, 1879.

Introduction

The ''little volume," as it styles itself, which is here brought under review, and which, according to the imprint on the title-page of the copy now lying before me, has already, though given to the public less than two years ago, reached its *' fortieth thousand," is as remarkable for what it does not contain, as for what it does. Though its ** object," as stated in the preface, is, *' to present in a plain and practical form, an exposition and a vindication of the principal tenets of the Catholic Church," meaning thereby the Church under the headship of the bishop of Rome, I have been able to detect, in the course of a careful reading and re-reading of the book, not so much as even an allusion to the Roman doctrine of Justification ; the briefest and barest mention of works of supererogation and the '' Treasury" of the merits of the saints, not a syllable of any special invocation of the Virgin Mary as distinguished from the other saints ; and only nine lines — six of them tv^^o hundred and thirty-three pages apart from the other three — of ** exposition and vindication" of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin !

Here is absolutely all that I can find, from beginning to end of the four hundred and thirty-three pages, on what are commonly called Works of Supererogation : '* An indulgence is simply a remission in whole or in part, through the sicperabzindant merits of Jesus

2 IXTRODUCTION.

Christ and Jiis saints, [italics mine], of the temporal punishment due to God on account of sin, after the guilt and eternal punishment have been remitted" (p. 385). '* Those, however, who contributed nothing [to the completion of St. Peter's], shared equally in the treasury [italics mine] of the Church, provided they complied with the essential conditions for gaining the indulgence'' (p. 391).

Who would gather from this *' exposition and vindication," that the merits of the saints — that is, the good works they have done over and above what they are required to do — form a *' treasure," of which the Pope holds the key, and which he can set over to the account of those, on earth or in purgatory, who have not done so much as is required of them, and thereby supply to them what they lack ?

And here is all that I can find, in the whole four hundred and thirty-three pages, on the Immaculate Conception : '* In the doctrine of the supreme power of Peter, as the visible foundation of the Church, we have the implied assertion [italics his] of many rights and duties which belong to the centre of unity. In the revelation of the supereminent dignity and purity of the Blessed Virgin, there is implied her exemption from Original Sin, etc., etc." (p. 30). '' Hence Pascal truly says that man is a greater mystery to himself without Original Sin, than is the mystery itself.

** The Church, however, declares that the Blessed Virgin Mary was exempted from the stain of Original Sin by the merits of our Saviour Jesus Christ ; and that, consequently, she was never for an instant subject to the dominion of Satan. This is what is meant by the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception" (p. 263).

Here is the whole *' exposition and vindication,'' and coupling it with the absolute silence of the book on any special veneration of the Virgin above that of the other saints, and contrasting it with the well-known

IX TR OD UC TION. 3

and universal practice of the Roman Church, we may well say, We have here the tragedy of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet left out. Evidently, the Archbishop, writing, as he is, to Protestants, keeps in mind the saying of the wise man. Surely^ in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird ! I commend his prudence, but would much rather be able to commend his candor. To be open and aboveboard is best, in the long run, even as a matter of policy ; and even if it were not, it ought to commend itself to a Christian man, not to say an Archbishop and Metropolitan.

But I fear that straightforwardness is not a characteristic of the Archbishop ; for, I am sorry to say, I have detected him in a gross and glaring misrepresentation of Luther's teaching on communion under one kind, leaving oat in the first line of his citation two words on which the whole hinges, and stopping short of the end of the sentence, when if he had gone on and completed it, and given the next paragraph, his readers would have seen that he was making Luther teach exactly the contrary of what he did teach.

But Luther was ''a heretic.'' How is it with the Catholics ? the real ones, I mean, of the olden time ; not the new-fangled Roman ones ? Does the Archbishop treat them any better ? No ! for, again I am sorry to say, I have detected him in a garbling of St. Basil, in what purports to be a continuous and consecutive quotation from the Regiilce Breves — lumping into one continuous paragraph sentences that are only twenty four folio pages (of the Benedictine edition) apart from each other, and stopping short, in the first part of the quotation, with a period, where St. Basil puts a comma, because to have given the rest of the sentence, which could have been done in half a dozen lines, would have defeated the purpose for which the citation was made! The proof of this will come in due time.*

"' See chapters xxi. and xxv.

4 INTRODUCTION.

The Archbishop's '* Introduction" begins : '* My Dear Reader — Perhaps this is the first time in your life that you have handled a book in which the doctrines of the Catholic [meaning thereby the Roman] Church are expounded by one of her sons/' No, it is 7iot the first time. Had it been, I might have been surprised at the Archbishop's treatment of Luther and St. Basil ; but having already handled more than one such book, I was prepared for such misrepresentations and garblings, and set m3^self to ferret them out. The two above referred to may serve as specimens ; there are plenty more, as we shall see, before we get through.

** There is no Freemasonry," says the Archbishop (p. 13), ** in the Catholic [meaning the Roman] Church ; she has no secrets to keep back." And yet he ** keeps back" the Roman doctrine concerning Justification, — concerning the three ** Holy Orders" of the ministry, priests, deacons, and subdeacons, instead of bishops, priests, and deacons, — concerning the special worship \hyperdtilid) of the Virgin above that of the other saints ; rather a significant *' keeping back," for which, however, the Archbishop is responsible, and not the accredited teachings of his Church.

'' And in coming to the [Roman] Church," continues the Archbishop (p. 15), '*you are not entering a strange place, but you are returning to your Father's home. The house and furniture may look odd to you. But it is just the same as your forefathers left it three hundred years ago."

If this were true, the question would be whether they had cause to leave it ; whether the house was tenantable to one who valued his soul's health too much to expose it to a spiritual malaria worse than the physical one of the Pomptine marshes. But it is 7iot true.

/ For, in the first place, otir forefathers did not leave it.

I On the contrary, they remained where they were ;

IXTRODUCTION, S

where they had been from the beginning ; in the old ^ historic Church of their fathers. VThey merely shook : off a usurpation which king after king had conspired with pope after pope to fasten upon them, but against which they had, struggled, century after century, unsuccessfully, till, in the good providence of God, conspiring king and pope became contending king and pope, and the wrath of man was made to praise God, and the Church (in the end) to have her own again. And, in the second place, the ** house'' is not the same that it was when the usurper's grasp was taken off from the Church of England's throat. Then, and for thirty years thereafter, the two Churches had the same creeds, the Apostles,' the Nicene, and the Athanasian. But in 1564 Pope Pms IV. set forth a new creed that has ever since gone by his name, witnessing thereby to its own novelty. Verily, the ** house" is not ** just the same" that it was three hundred and odd years ago. It is not even the same that it was twenty-five years ago. Then Padre Vigil was ** a good Catholic" though he denied the Immaculate Conception. But within a year thereafter he became ** a bad Catholic," not from any change in him on that point (for there was none), but because the ** house" had got adrift, while he kept to his moorings. Nay, it is not the same that it was ten years ago. For Bollinger, and Rheinkens, and Hertzog, were ** good Catholics" then, though they denied the Infallibility of the Pope ; but they are '' bad Catholics" now, not from any alteration in their faith upon that point (for it has not altered by the breadth of a hair), but because the *' house" is changed, and thev won't change with it. And yet, the Archbishop has the assurance to tell us that the '* house" is *' just the same" that it was in the time of our forefathers. Verily, he must think poorly of our reasoning powers, if he expects us to believe him ; too poorly, one would think, to wish to

6 INTRODUCTION,

proselyte us. For what accession, even to a society of feeble-minded persons and idiots, could such reasoners be?

Having thus disposed of all that needs disposing of in the Archbishop's Introduction, I now proceed to consider, chapter by chapter, the rest of the work. Some of the chapters can be dispatched in few words : others will require a fuller handling.

THE FAITH OF OUR FOREFATHERS.

Chapter I. The Blessed Trinity, The Incarnation, Etc

The first Chapter of the Archbishop's ''little vol lime," as might be conjectured from its title, has nothing in it calling for observation, and I make mention of it, therefore, merely for convenience' sake, that the numbering ot my chapters may correspond to that of his.

The principal marks or characteristics of the true Church," says the Archbishop, in the concluding paragraph, quoting from the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed, ''are, her Unity, Sanctity, Catholicity, and Apostolicity, to which,' ' he continues, though without the warrant of the creed, " may be added the Infallibility of her teaching and the Perpetuity of her existence. I shall treat," he adds, " successively of these marks. ' *

In the order of this treatment, I propose to follow him.

Chapter II. The Unity Of The Church

"By unity," says the Archbishop, " is meant that the members of the true Church must be united in the

8 THE FAITH OF OCR FOREFATHERS.

belief of the same doctrines of revelation, an^^i in the acknowledgment of the authority of the same pastors. Heresy and schism are opposed to Christian unity. By heresy, a man rejects one or more articles of the Christian faith. By schism, he spurns the authority of his spiritual superiors'' (p. 21).

The Catechism of the Council of Trent puts it some what differently : '' So vast a multitude, scattered far and wide, is called one, for the reasons mentioned by St. Paul in his epistle to the Ephesians : ' Qne Lord, one faith, one baptism.' This Church," it adds, 'Tias also but one ruler and one governor, the invisible one, Christ, whom the Eternal Father ' hath made head over all the Church, which is his body ;' " and then it goes on, in the next breath, to speak of another, a '' visible" one, the " successor of Peter" (Part I., Article ix., T II, Donovan's Translation. Baltimore: John Murphy). *

How there can be *' but one," and that o^e** invisible," and yet, another, and that one '' visilple," is not very easy to see ; especially when taken in connection with another statement of the same catechism, to wit, that ** the Church consists principally of two parts, the one called the Church triumphant, the other the Church militant ;" and that these are not two Churches, but **two constituent parts of one Church; one part gone before, and now in the possession of its heavenly country ; the other, following every day" (Pt. I., Art. ix.,l7).

Change ''triumphant" to ''expectant" (for the " part gone before" is not yet triumphant, and will not be till the Resurrection), and we have a true description of the one Church, with its one Head, and that Head invisible ; invisible, because, like the part of the Body which is nearest to it, it is " gone before," passed " within the veil" (Heb. 6 : 19, 20). ^

But is not the part that is " militant here on earth'*

THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH, 9

one ? Yes ! One with an organic unity ; but not necessarily with a brotherly unanimity. Brothers ought to be brotherly ; but they are not always ; and yet they do not thereby cease to be brothers. The organic tie remains.

** Brothers are brothers evermore."

There are manifold illustrations of the organic unity of the visible Church, each illustrating some one aspect of that unity.

The Church is one, as the Masonic fraternity is one. Now the unity of this latter is a visible unity, '* known and read of all men ;'' and yet it has no ecumenical head, but only a national head to each national organization. Plainly, then, a visible earthly head is not necessary to the visible unity of the Visible Church. Perhaps it is on this account that the Roman Church is so sp':cially hostile to Freemasonry. She can have no liking for a society w^hose very existence is a standing proof of the possibility of visible ecumenical unity without a visible ecumenical head.

The Church is one, as the race is one. The first Adam is the head of the race ; of the part that has gone before, as Avell as of the part still on earth ; and it has no other head. The second Adam is the head of the Church ; of the part still on earth, as well as of the part that has gone before ; and it has no other head.

The Church is one, as the family is one. Though '' two of us in the churchyard lie," and the other five are parted, it may be, for all of this life, yet still '' we are seven ;" and these seven are one ; and this one family 'has one head and only one ; for husband and wife are one. In like manner, the Church, '' the whole family in heaven and earth,'' is one ; and it has one Head, and only one.

But must not '' the members of the true Church" be ''united in the acknowledgment of the authority of the same pastors?" They should be vinited in the acknowledgment of the same ministry, to wit, the Apostolic ; but it is the misfortune, rather than the fault, of the many in this land, and large numbers in the motherland, that they are not. The ** true Church" draws a broad line of demarcation between those who knowingly and wilfully create a schism, and \ those who unwittingly slide into it, or are born and reared in it. She claims as her own every baptized man and woman and child. She does not excommunicate those Avho by the misfortune of their birth and education are in formal but not wilful schism. She leaves that to the false parent, the stepmother, Rome. *' Peter" may '* begin to curse and to swear ;" the Church of Christ, Catholic in truth and not in pretence, has a different way of w^inning back those of her children who have strayed from her fold ; the way of the Mother in those beautiful lines of the Greek Anthology, so exquisitely translated by Samuel Rogers :

** While on the cliff with calm delight she kneels, And the blue vales a thousand joys recall, See, to the last, last verge her infant steals :

Oh fly ! yet stir not, speak not, lest it fall ! Far better taught, she lays her bosom bare. And the fond boy springs back, to nestle there."

Even the stepmother Rome can, when it suits her purpose, make allowance for what she calls invincible ignor- • ance, Som^ of her children better her instructions. Said the late Bishop Wilberforce to his servant-girl, '* How is it, Bridget, that you are so attached to me, and yet you beheve that I shall go to hell when I die ?" ** Oh, I dont believe it." '' But how am^I to be saved ?" '' You'll be saved by your invincible hignorance." Bridget's heart was better than her head: Rome's heart is worse, I fear, than its head ; and that is saying a great deal.

But must not '* the members of the true Church

THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. ii

be ** united in the belief of the same doctrines of revelation ?" So far as those doctrines are articles of faith, Yes ; so far as they are outside of the faith, No. What, then, is the faith ? The Catechism of the Council of Trent — that '' Catechism which," says the Council (Sess. 24, de Reform, c. 7), '' Bishops will take care to have faithfully translated into the vernacular language, and expounded to the people by all pastors" — shall give the answer to this question, an answer which the Archbishop is estopped from finding fault with :

'' Our predecessors in the faith have very wisely reduced them [viz. *'the truths revealed by Almighty God"] to these four heads — The Apostles' Creed — The Sacraments — The Ten Commandments — and The Lord's Prayer. The Creed contains all that is to be held according to the discipline of the Christian faith, whether it regard the knowledge of God, the creation and government of the world ; or the redemption of man, the rewards of the good and the punishments of the wicked. . . . The first, then, and most important points of Christian faith are those which the holy apostles, the great leaders and teachers of the faith, men inspired by the Holy Ghost, have divided into the twelve articles of the Creed : for as they had received a command from the Lord 1j go forth ' into the whole world,' as his ambassadors, and preach the Gospel to every creature (2 Cor. 5 : 18, 19, 20 ; Mark. 1 16 : 15), they thought proper to conpose a form off Christian faith, ' that all may speak and think the same thing ' (i Cor. 1:10); and that amongst those whom they should have called to the unity of faith, no schisms should exist ; but that they should be perfect in the same mind, and in the same spirit. This profession of Christian faith and hope, drawn up by themselves, the Apostles called a 'symbol/ either because it was an aggregate of the combined sentiments of all ; or because, by it as by a common sign and watchword, they might easily distinguish false brethren, deserters from the faith ' unawares brought in ' (Gal. 2:4), ' who adulterated the word of God ' ( 2 Cor. 2:17), from those who had pledged an oath of fidelity to serve under the banner of Christ" (Preface, ^T[ 14 and 17).

The Apostles' Creed, then (whether we accept this account of its origin or not), contains all that is necessary to be believed as a requisite to everlasting salvation. We might infer this from the fact that it is the baptismal creed, and the further fact that it is the only creed we examine the Christian on when we visit him in his last sickness and commend his parting spirit *' into the hands of its faithful Creator and most merciful Saviour ;" for, surely, that which is sufficient for the beginning and the end of the Christian life, is sufficient for the whole course of it. As to the Nicene Creed, the Church accepts it as a legitimate development and amplification of the teaching of the Apostles' Creed, and as such she teaches it to her children, and expects them to ''grow up into it," — an expectation which is justified by the result ; but she does not impose it on them as a condition of salvation. As to the Creed of Pope Pius IV., she regards it as in no sense a development or amplification of, but rather an unsightly patch sewed on to, the old historic creed. It is not an amplification ; for to amplify is ''to place a subject in some way in a clearer light" (Andrews' " Freund's Lexicon," sub voc, ampltfico) ; not to add a new subject. Neither is it a development ; for what is there in the Apostles' Creed that could be developed into the supremacy of the Roman Church as the Mother and Mistress of all Churches ?"^ He that could develop the former into the latter, or into any other of the articles of the creed of Pope Pius, could develop a beemoth into a behemoth, or even a horse chestnut into a chestnut horse !

THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 13

Nor has this patchwork development stopped here. Even within our own day, we have had two new articles tacked on to the old creed by the Roman Church. And yet the Archbishop has the assurance to tell us that '' her creed is now identical with what it was in past ages*' (p. 2j). How does he make this out? Thus :

** But it may be asked, is not this unity of faith impaired by those doctrinal definitions which the Church has promulgated from time to time ? We answer : No new dogma, unknown to the apostles, not contained in the primitive Christian revelation, can be admitted (John 14 : 26 ; 15:15; 16 : 13). For the apostles received the whole deposit of God's word, according to the promise of our Lord : ' When he shall come, the spirit of truth, he shall teach you all truth.' And so the Church proposes the doctrines of faith, such as they came from the lips of Christ, and as the Holy Spirit taught them to the apostles at the birth of the Christian law — doctrines which know neither variation nor decay.

'* Hence, wlienever it has been defined that any point of doctrine pertained to the Catholic faith, it was always understood that this was equivalent to the declaration that the doctrine in question had been revealed to the apostles, and had come down to us from them, either by scripture or tradition" (pp. 28, 29).

Let us hold the Archbishop to this, and see where it will land him. Within the memory of many of us, for it dates back less than a quarter of a century, ** it has been defined" that the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary '* pertains to the Catholic faith." It follows from the Archbishop's declaration above cited, that it alwa3^s did pertain to it. It Avas therefore a part of *' the Catholic faith" at the time of the Council of Trent. And 3^et, at that time, the Dominicans and

Franciscans were at swords' points upon it, and so continued to be, down almost to our own day. Why did not the infallible Pope interpose, when a word from him would have settled the controversy ? Why did he leave the Church in uncertainty about it for three hundred years ? This is a question that I shall defer till I come to the question of Infallibility. At present it concerns me only to ask. Where is the boasted *' admirable unity that exists in matters of faith ?" (p. 28). Or rather, Where zvas it, at the Council of Trent, and for a quarter of a millennium thereafter ? For as, according to the Archbishop (p. 74), the Roman Church is *' to-day'' '' more united, more compact, and more vigorous than ever she was before," it follows that before *' to-day" she was less ** vigorous," less ''compact," less ''united." How has the "admirable unity" of *^' to-day" been brought about? By cutting off those who, like DoUinger, profess the same faith "to-day" that they professed yesterday, and decline to change with the changing infallible Church. Verily, a compendious way of securing unity ! Change, yourself, and then cut off those that won't change with you, and it takes no ghost to tell that those who remain will be united. But what is such a unity worth ? Coleridge tells of a man who was " content to think with the great Dr. Paley," and to whom he retorted, " Man of sense. Dr. Paley was a great man ; but you do not think, at all !" So it is with the rank and file of the Roman communion, in the matter of new-fangled articles of faith. They do not think at all ; they let the Pope do their thinking for them, and when he changes, presto, they change with him.

But the Archbishop will have it that there is no change; only "a more explicit declaration'' of Avhat was previously " implicitly, less clearly, not so earnestly proposed," because there was then "no contrary teaching to render a more explicit declaration neces-

THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH, 15

sary" (pp. 30, 31). He, very conveniently keeps out of sight, what, nevertheless, he well knows to be the fact, that for the greater part of the last three hundred years, there lias been, in the matter of the Immaculate Conception, ** contrary teaching" on the part of the Dominican low church, in opposition to the Franciscan high church, and therefore, on his own showing, occasion *' for a more explicit declaration;" 3^et, till within the last quarter of a century, no such declaration forthcoming.

In pursuing this subject, the Archbishop devotes three or four pages to what may be called a sermon, on the text, '* A revealed truth frequently has a very extensive scope, and is directed against error under its many changing forms. Nor is it necessary that those who receive this revelation in the first instance, should be explicitly acquainted with its full import, or cognizant of all its bearings.

A very good text, but a very inconsequent sermon ; for neither of the two doctrines *' defined" by the late Pope, can come under this category. Surely, if there is *' occasion" now for the explicit belief of the Immaculate Conception, and the Infallibility of the Pope, there was equal occasion for it in the beginning. Think of a Church having an Infallible Pope at her head for eighteen hundred years, and all that time not knowing that he was infallible ! Nay, allowing her children to deny his infallibility freely up to the year of grace 1870, and then for the first time excommunicating them for such denial ! A man of plain practical common sense would suppose that if the Church had already got along for eighteen hundred years without knowing that the Pope was Infallible, she could get along another eighteen hundred years without knowing it ; and further that if a doctrine so *' important if true," had, to say the least, not been certainly known to be true by the Church, it could not possibly be true.

But more of this when we come to the chapter on Infallibility.

In conclusion, unity depends on historic continuity. In the words of another, ** It is not because the Church is Episcopal or Presbyterian ; because it worships with or without a Liturg}" ; nor for any other peculiarity of doctrine or organization, that it is said to be the Church that our Lord * purchased with his ow^n blood \ 'gave himself for ; ' ' that he might sanctify and cleanse it, and present it to himself without spot, or w^rinkle, or any such thing.' But it is on account of identity or sameness with the Church spoken of in the Scriptures, that we can apply these things to any modern body professing to be Christians. The great point of our inquiry has been identity of origin. The same vine can never grow from several different [original] roots.'' (''Church Identified," by the Rev. W. D. Wilson, D.D. New York, 1850 ; pp. 238, 239.)