Protestantism and the Church

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Protestantism and the Church.

Preface

fJUIE following lectures were only substantially delivered in St. Ann's Church during this Advent. There are two reasons for their publication : First, it was impossible to treat the subject with any completeness in the ordinary time allotted to an evening's discourse. The extreme importance of the questions proposed made me unwilling *to do myself injustice by trusting to a brief, unwritten lecture. In almost all the points of history I have fortified my statements by quotations from Protestant authorities ; and such quotations could not well be presented in any integrity without the risk of wearying the audience. Yet such testimonies are of great weight in the argument, and ought to influence any honest mind. The natural desire to do whatever good one is able to do has, then, led me to the careful preparation and publication of these lectures. Those who have kindly listened to the spoken discourses will be able to appreciate the propriety of presenting to the public these subects in a more perfect form. Secondly, there are

Prefa ce.

many who did not hear the lectures, who may, by the blessing of God, derive some profit from them, if they will be patient enough to read and study them.

I am not so unwise as to think that there is any great merit in my treatment of a familiar subject. I have only written in a popular form, without any attempt at that perfection which belongs to a more labored treatise. Still, it seems to me that I have stated enough to convince the candid reader, or at least to lead him to prayerful investigation of a matter which is vital to the soul. These questions are not in regard to the affairs of this short life. They concern eternity and the salvation of men. It is necessary to salvation to belong to the true Church of Christ ; and nothing but invincible ignorance can excuse those who are separate from the one fold of faith. I will only beg every one to read these lectures in the same spirit as that in which I have prepared them, and in the desire to be true and sincere with G-od. The infinite mercy may bless that which of itself is so imperfect, and cause our poor efforts to tend in some way to the extension on earth of the kingdom of Christ and the glory of the Incarnate Word. T. S. P.

New Yoek, Feast of St. Thomas, 1881.

Lecture First.

THE DIVINE INSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH.

Lecture First.

THE DIVINE INSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH.

"And I say unto thee : that thou art Peter ; and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."— St. Matthew xvi. 18.

pRECEDINGr lectures upon the Protestant Reformation have shown the character of that divided and contradictory Christianity which then sprang into being, and which has for three centuries resisted the authority of the Catholic Church. We briefly examined the causes which led to the rise of Protestantism, the character of the founders of that irrational system of error, and the consequences which followed their teachings. Two manifest results are apparent to every one. While the leaders and fathers of Protestantism have succeeded in drawing many from the ancient faith of more than fourteen centuries, they have altogether broken up the unity of Christian belief, and have divided into sects without number the communion of their followers. There is not the slightest pretence of visible unity, and for them the one Christian Church has ceased to be. And, secondly, while the external unity of Protestants is an impossibility, the internal union of belief is still more impossible. Sects which mutually contradict each other have left not one common article of the Christian creed, and stand in hopeless discord before the world, as in truth the abettors of an infidelity which denies Christ and assails even the throne of God.

It has often occurred to us to wonder that honest and sincere minds do not at once reject a system which, full of contradictions, is contrary to reason ; and that they do not feel the force of the almost self-evident proposition, that, as God is one, His religion must be one. A still greater wonder is, that history with its teachings is ignored, and that Christianity, which can only spring from "Christ, is made to come from the brains of men who do not even claim to be inspired. The Christian revelation depends entirely upon our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who is God and Man in one person. As man He was born into this world and is an historical character. His life and labors are matter of history, which teaches us that He founded a Church, of necessity one, which He promised to maintain until His second coming. It is an undeniable fact that the

Church which He thtis established is in being and has fulfilled, through all the ages, His promise. How can any true heart prefer the contradicting tongnes of numberless sects, claiming no authority to teach mankind, to the one unchanging voice of the Catholic and Apostolic Church ? How can any sincere seeker for truth cut himself off from the historical Christianity which must speak the words of Christ, if there be any body on earth to represent Him ?

Now, in our former brief lectures we were able to consider Protestantism only from the view of its attack upon the ancient and universally-received faith, and from the moral disorder which flowed of necessity from the destruction of a fixed creed. In simple and popular discourses we could only touch the outline of an argument, which is to true reason unanswerable. It has seemed to us that it might be of advantage to take up again the subject of the so-called Reformation from the point of its attack upon the Christian Church, and to show that it has aimed to destroy altogether, and for its disciples has really destroyed, the most sacred institution of Christ. The argument of former lectures was, in plain terms : That cannot be the religion of Christ which subverts the Christian faith, and instead of unity of belief brings in doubt and dissension with consequent immorality.

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The argument of the discourse's we propose to give this Advent concerns principally the external communion of the faithful under one head, the Church which Jesus Christ founded, and for which He gave Himself in agonies and death. There is such a Church, or the word of the God-Man has failed. The Reformation with all the systems which it has engendered denies the existence of that Church, and is therefore, notwithstanding all its appearances of piety, the enemy of God and His Christ. Individuals stand or fall before their invisible and omniscient Judge, who will render to every man according to his works. But systems of falsehood and the founders of such systems are already condemned by the invariable truth of the one Teacher and Redeemer of mankind.

In accordance, therefore, with this plan of argument, we propose in the first lecture of this short course to show the divine institution of the Christian Church by the repetition of familiar and incontrovertible evidence. The .second discourse will demonstrate that the Protestant Reformation theoretically and practically has destroyed the Church, and has therefore sought to attack the most sacred work of Jesus Christ. The third lecture will examine the singular and irrational theory by which the system called Anglicanism seeks to sustain itself.

Our discussion would not be complete without a notice of this peculiar theory, which pretends to stand in the impossible half-way position between the unity of the Church and the disunion of Protestantism. We think it will quite plainly appear that Anglicans, as they love to call themselves, are the offspring of the Reformation, and distinctly marked with a birth they desire to disown.

The concluding lecture will present the Catholic doctrine concerning the Church, infallibly taught by the Supreme Pontiffs, the councils, and Fathers of Christian antiquity. This doctrine, as old as the Founder of our religion, is the only defence against infidelity, and the only guard of the manifestation of Grod incarnate upon earth.

The truth is simple and plain, and to Catholic ears easy of comprehension. There is nothing new in our argument, and surely nothing effective in our feeble presentation of it. It depends upon the light and power of the Holy Spirit to touch our lips and inflame our words, that they may bring conviction and make known to honest hearts the truth as it is in Jesus. To the throne, then, of that Divine Spirit we come, and beg with all our souls that He who is life may make us live ; that He who is truth may speak through us, and impart to our nothingness something of His convincing power. For, surely, we are

First Leciurm.

treating of the things that concern life or death, salvation through the redeeming blood or everlasting perdition. "To him that knoweth to do good, and doth it not, to him it is sin." *

The purpose of this evening's lecture will, then, be to present to you the proof that Jesus Christ, our Saviour, founded a Church, with all the necessary provisions for its permanence as His representative, and the sign or sacrament of unity with Himself. Here we shall only tread upon familiar ground ; yet the repetition of truths so essential to our faith will tend to confirm us in our Christian profession, while, by the blessing of God, it may lead to the conviction and conversion of some who earnestly seek for their Redeemer and yearn to hear His infallible voice. These will hear with obedient minds, while God, who has promised to honor His own institutions, will speak with the feeble tongue of the preacher.

The proper discussion of our subject leads us to answer the following questions :

I. Did Jesus Christ, our Lord, institute a Church ?

II. What are the principal characteristics of this Church %

III. What were the principal promises which He made to it %

* St. James iv. 17.

IV. Are the facts of history in accordance with these promises \

V. Are not the Catholic Church and Christianity synonymous in idea and in act ?

I. Our Divine Lord Jesus Christ did institute a

Church.

Here we might perhaps content ourselves with the almost universal admission of those who call themselves Christians. However they may differ as to the nature or prerogatives of this Church, yet nearly all profess to believe that a Church was established by Christ ; and in this conviction the world has for ages acquiesced. This Church is the great feature of human history since the Incarnation, and since a Divine Providence has forced the earth to number its years from the birth of God made man.

It will be well, however, to note the testimony of Holy Scripture, which is an inspired narrative of the sayings and doings of our Lord. One of the first acts of His ministry after His solemn baptism in the Jordan was to call His disciples and to form them into a community. Afterwards of the body of the disciples He selected twelve, whom He named apostles. " It came to pass in those days that He

First Lecture.

went out into a mountain to pray, and He passed the whole night in the prayer of God. And when it was day, He called His disciples, and He chose twelve of them, whom also He named apostles : Simon, whom He surnamed Peter, and Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alpheus, and Simon who is called Zelotes, Jude the brother of James, and Judas Iscariot, who was the traitor." * To these apostles He gave authority to act as ministers in His name.

"As the Father hath sent me, even so do I send you." f " He that heareth you, heareth me ; and he that despiseth you, despise th me." % Such a designation of ministry implies an organized community — namely, the Church, which, according to the Apostle St. Paul, "is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone." § Our Lord in still plainer terms indicates His- purpose and the nature of the Church He proposed to found. Addressing Simon, He says to him: "I say to thee : that thou art Peter ; and upon this rock will I build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." || Here He declares His will to found a Church upon Simon,

* St. Luke vi. 12-16. f St. John xx. 21. % St. Luke x. 16. § Ephes. ii. 20. || St. Matt. xvi. 18.

whom He had surnamed a rock, as its stable foundation, against which no power of diabolical malice should prevail.

The Acts of the Apostles are a simple narrative of the establishment and growth of this Church in different lands. In the very beginning we find St. Peter calling together the Church to fill up the place of the traitor Judas among the twelve ; and succeeding chapters show how this communion of Christ, under various persecutions, grew and extended itself from nation to nation, and earned for itself the name of Catholic even before the death of the apostles.

" Take heed," says St. Paul, " to yourselves, and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath placed you bishops, to rule the Church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood." * "If any one will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican." f These words of our Blessed Lord are explained by the apostle, who declares the visible communion of Christians, over which the apostles and their successors ruled, to be u the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." %

The demonstration from Holy Scripture is conclusive. Our Divine Redeemer promised to establish a

* Acts xx. 28. f St. Matt, xviii. 17. % 1 St. Tito. iii. 15.

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Church, and fulfilled His promise ; and the communion which He organized under the rule of St. Peter and the apostles, was one body, bearing the marks of His divine hand, and therefore possessing a divine character.

If we now appeal to profane history we can say, without fear of contradiction, that there is no fact so well established, not one more universally received, not one which has left such ineffaceable marks upon society. The Church has lived above and against the seductions and hatred of the world. It has survived all its persecutors, while mighty dynasties have risen, flourished, and crumbled to dust. It has subdued the jealousy of Jewish malice, and borne into oblivion the enmity of pagan idolatry. Whatever it hath touched it has either bent to its sway or ground to powder. It hath converted the pagan, and turned to sweetness the fury of the barbarian. No age nor nation which has seen the feet of its ministry of peace has failed to be illumined and moulded by its all-powerful sway. Without the Church of Jesus Christ the history of nineteen centuries has no meaning. There is no explanation of the struggles of nations, of the war between evil and good, or of the divine providence among the rebel spirits of men.

It seems, then, unnecessary to pursue this demonstration, and it only remains to add that the Church which our Lord established was in its very nature a visible body. It was composed of visible men, governed by visible rulers, and founded by a visible Redeemer. If it were invisible it could be of no use to mankind, nor could it accomplish any of the ends proposed. It could neither teach, govern, nor convey sacramental grace through visible signs. "The tower of election is exalted everywhere and is beautiful to look upon," says St. Irenseus ; "for everywhere is the Church distinctly visible, and everywhere is the wine-press dug" * "The spiritual Sion is the Church in which Christ has been appointed King by God the Father — a Church which is throughout the world, wherein there is one Catholic Church." f "It is an easier thing for the sun to be quenched than for the Church to be made invisible." J "There is, therefore," says St. Augustine, " no safeguard of unity, save from the Church made known by the promises of Christ— a Church which, being seated on a hill, cannot be hid, and is necessarily known to all parts, of the earth." §

| St. Optatus, "DeSchis. Donat," III.

X St. Chrysostom, T. VI. Horn. IV.

§ St. Augustine, T. IX. L. III. contra Ep. Parmen.

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II

The Characteristics of the Church founded by our Lord Jesus Christ.

If we look more closely at the nature of the organization which our Divine Master instituted we shall see more plainly what He made it, and what He intended it to be. His words were creative, and His will is efficacious. Of necessity its characteristics are unity, sanctity, catholicity, and apostolicity. We say of necessity, because these characteristics are essential to the Church which He established, and cannot fail without destroying the life of the Church itself. We shall see how this proposition is proved by reason, and also by the inspired language of the divine Scripture.

1. Unity is an essential endowment of the Church, without which, in the proper sense of the term, there can be no Church.

Let it be understood that God alone can found a Church. Man can no more make a Church than he can create a world. He can gather men into one company and establish a society ; but such an organization is purely human and in no sense a Church. Now, God is an essential unity, and could not found two or more churches without contradicting Himself, which is impossible. He must either found one or none. The moment there are two, there is contradiction, of which the Divine Being cannot be the author. We argue rightly for the unity of God, from the fact that the very idea of necessary being excludes an equal, much more a superior. We may also apply the argument to the unity of the Church, which confessedly represents Him on earth. He cannot have two representatives of His divine unity. One may be clothed with His power and be filled with His life. There can be no rival here, else the likeness of God is lost, and the representative ceases to bear the image of its principal amid the scene of utter confusion. Moreover, the end for which Jesus Christ founded a Church demands the strictest unity. The Church is sent to teach, to govern, and to convey through external signs the grace of the cross to redeemed man. There can be but one teacher, as there is only one truth to be made known. There can be only one ruler, else there is constant discord, and with such division there can be no possible exercise of loyal obedience. There can be but one priesthood with power to apply the blood of Calvary, else men may wander in vain, and neither see their teachers nor know where the waters of salvation flow. Besides the argument that God cannot contradict Himself through contradicting teachers, the erection of two or more churches

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would be the destruction of His whole plan and the frustration of the work of His apostles. Not even human wisdom would be guilty of such shortsighted folly. It is strange that every honest mind does not at once see this conclusion. Surely it is irrational to make God less wise than His creatures.

And this unity which belongs to the Church is visible, complete, and permanent. We can comprehend no other idea of unity attaching to a visible body ; for if the body be not visibly one, it is not visible at all. As also visible unity is the outward expression of internal unity, it naturally follows that where one exists the other must be found. So complete is this unity that it cannot be infringed, since it is an essential characteristic of the Church. Individual members may fall away, but they perish because they cease to be united to the body. The visible unity of the Church cannot be touched without the entire destruction of the whole. It is easier to conceive of the Church of Christ falling into nothing, and ceasing to be, than to comprehend the contradictory supposition of its existence and its loss of visible unity. That which belongs to the essence of a thing must endure while the thing continues to be, and therefore the Church of Christ will always be one, persevering to the end in its visible integrity.

We come now to the question of fact. It is certain that our Divine Lord founded a Church, and that He founded but one. With all the absurd theories of our time, it is not even pretended that He founded more than one Church. But let us see what are His own words in regard to its unity. In the memorable language addressed to St. Peter He constitutes him the head of the Church He is to build : % ' Upon thee, whom I have for this reason surnamed a rock, I will build my Church." One foundation implies the most rigid unity of the building. But Peter is one, and therefore the superstructure is one. Moreover, the headship here given to Peter makes him the one ruler of the whole Church. The words of St. Ambrose are, then, rigidly true: "Where Peter is, there is the Church." The body cannot be severed from the head, and any member losing its living union with, the head perishes.

The comparisons used by the inspired writers establish also the visible unity of the Christian Church. They continually call it the kingdom of Christ, according to the prophecy : " In those days the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed." * "I dispose to you, as my Father hath disposed to me, a kingdom." f The essential characf St. Luke xxii. 29.

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teristic of a kingdom is its unity. " A kingdom divided against itself shall be made desolate." * In no sense could the Church be likened to a kingdom if it were not visibly one. It is also called a body, and the body of Christ Himself. "He hath made Him head over all the Church, which is His body, and the fulness of Him who is filled all in all." f "Christ is the head of the Church ; He is the saviour of His body." % Surely there can be no unity more perfect than that of the human body, where the least infringement of it is loss of life.

The Church is again compared to a temple built upon one foundation, whose firmness depends upon the grace and promise of Christ: "You are built ■upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone : in whom all the building, being framed together, groweth up into a holy temple in the Lord." § So says the apostle: "There is one body, as there is one Spirit, as there is one hope of our calling, as there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God." || And our Lord likens this unity of the members of the Church to each other, to their visible head, and to Himself, to the unity of the three Persons in the adorable Trinity: "The glory which

* St. Matt. xii. 25. f Ephes. i. 22, 23. || Bphes. v. 23.

Thou hast given to me I have given to them ; that they may be one, as we also are one." * There is no possible answer to these words of God. The Church founded by Christ is necessarily and permanently one. In this connection let us hear for a moment the language of some early Christian Fathers who testify to the facts of Christianity and to the doctrine received from our Lord.

Clement of Alexandria, a.d. 190: "The true Church is one in which are enrolled all who are just according to God's purpose. The one Church is associated to the nature of the One, which Church these men violently attempt to divide into many heresies" ("Strom.," L. VI.)

St. Cyprian, a.d. 248: "Part a ray of the sun from its orb ; this division of light the unity allows not. Break a branch from the tree ; once broken it can bud no more. Cut the stream from its source ; the remnant dries up. Thus the Church, flooded with the light of the Lord, puts forth her rays through the whole world ; yet the light is one, which is spread over every place, while its unity of body is preserved." "There is one God and one Christ, and His Church is one, and the faith one, and the people one, joined into the solid unity of one

*St. John xvii. 22.

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body. Unity cannot be sundered, nor the one body be separated by the dissolution of its structure, nor be torn in pieces by the rending of its inward vitals. Whatsoever is parted from the womb cannot live and breathe in a state of separation ; it loses its principle of health."

St. Ambrose, a.d. 3S5 : " Out of every valley is the Catholic people gathered. And now the congregations are not many, but there is one congregation and one Church. Learn from this that all heretics and schismatics are separated from the kingdom of God and from the Church" ("Hexcemer," L . III.)

St. J. Chrysostom, a.d. 387: "He calls it the Church of God, showing that it ought to be united. For if it be of God it is united, and is one not in Corinth only, but also in all the world. For the name of the Church is a name not of separation but of unity and concord" (Horn. I. in Ep. ad Cor.)

" Nothing so provokes God as the division of the Church. Even though we have done ten thousand good things, yet shall we, if we cut to pieces the fulness of the Church, suffer no less a punishment than they who mangled His body. A certain holy man (St. Cyprian) declared that not even the blood of martyrdom was able to blot out the sin of schism" (Horn. XI. in Ep. ad Ephes.)

St. Augustine, a.d. 400: "That Church assuredly is one which our ancestors called the Catholic, that they might show by the name itself that it is throughout the whole. But this Church is the body of Christ, as the apostle says, ' For His body, which is the Church' (Coloss. i. 24), whence it is manifest that he who is not in the members of Christ cannot have Christian salvation" (" De Unitate Ecclesise," N. 2).

Again, St. Cyprian, speaking of the unity of the Church secured by the headship of Peter, says: "There is one baptism, and one Holy Ghost, and one Church, founded by Christ our Lord upon Peter, for an original and principle of unity " (Ep. LXX. ad Januarium).

" The primacy is given to Peter, that the Church of Christ may be set forth as one and the chair as one. He who holds not this unity of the Church, does he think that he holds the faith % He who strives against and resists the Church, he who abandons the chair of Peter, upon whom the Church was founded, does he feel confident that he is in the Church % "

St. Maximus, a.d. 424, thus writes : "On account of the solidity of his devotedness to Christ, Peter is called the rock of the churches, as the Lord declares : 6 Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.' For he is called a rock, because he was the first to lay the foundations of the faith

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among the nations, and because, like a universal rock, lie binds together the compacted mass of the whole structure of Christianity" (Horn. IV. de Petro).

St. Leo, a.d. 440, thus speaks : "The Lord willed the sacrament of this office to pertain to all the apostles in such a manner, as that He placed it principally in the blessed Apostle Peter, the chief of all the apostles ; and wishes His gifts to flow unto the whole body from him, Peter, as from a head, that whoso should dare withdraw from the solidity of Peter might know himself to be an alien from the divine mystery. For it was His will that this man, whom he had taken into the fellowship of an indivisible unity, should be named that which He Himself was, by saying, 4 Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my Church,' that the building of the everlasting temple might, by the marvellous gift of the grace of God, be compacted together in the solidity of Peter, by this firmness strengthening His Church, so that neither human temerity should be able to injure it, nor the gates of hell prevail against it" (Ep. X. ad Epis. per Prov. Vienn.)

Thus the facts of history, as well as the inspired testimony of Holy .Scripture, prove that the Church which Jesus Christ founded possesses visible unity as one of its essential notes. " Whoever," says

St. Augustine in his synodic epistle from the Council of Zerta, "is separated from the Catholic Church, how laudably soever he may think he lives, yet for this crime only, that he is severed from the unity of Christ, he will not have life, but the wrath of God remains upon him."