The unity of the church explained

Contents

CHAPTEE.

I. — Unity of the Church, .....

II. — The English Schism, the Origin of, in.— The Mass Abolished; the Book of Common Prayer Substituted, ......

Chapter I. Unity Of The Church

St. Cyprian, De Unit ate Ecdesice, saith : '' The Lord saith to Peter, Matt, xvi., Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I shall build my church. Upon one he builds the church ; and although he bestows, after his resurrection, equal power upon all the apostles, saying, John, xx.. As the Father sent me, I also send you : receive ye the Holy Ghost; however, that he might render the unity manifest, he settled by his own authority the origin of the unity in one. The other apostles were certainly furnished with an equal share of honor and power with Peter. But the origin comes from the unity, to show that the Church is one : which one Church the Holy Ghost, also, in the Canticle of Canticles, vi. 8, declares in the person of the Lord, saying : One is my dove, my perfect one is but one. She is the only one of her mother. This unity of the church whosoever holds not, does he imagine that he holds the faith ? Whoever opposes and resists the Church, does he think that he is in the Church ? The blessed apostle Paul teaches the same thing, and sets forth the mystery of the unity: he saith, Ephes. iv. 3, One body and one spirit, in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God. Which unity we bishops, especially, who rule in the church, should firmly hold and maintain : that we may show that the episcopate is one and indivisible. Let none of us delude with falsehood the brotherhood : let none with perfidious prevarication corrupt the true faith. The episcopate is one, of which a part is held in full by each. The church is also one, which widely spreads with increasing fecundity through the multitude. Whilst the rays of the sun are many, the light is one ; and the limbs of the tree are numerous, the strength founded upon the firm root is one. When several streams flow from the one fountain, it would appear from the great outpouring that there is a numerosity ; unity is, however, had at the source. If you sever a ray from the sun, the unity suffers no division of the light. From the tree cut off a branch ; being cut off, it cannot germinate. From the fountain detach a stream ; being separated,it dries up. Thus the church of the Lord, a luminous body, sends forth its rays through the universe ; the light, however, everywhere diffused, is one: the unity of the body remains unbroken : she dispatches her branches, loaded with rich fruits, in all directions : she discharges her overflowing streams into the whole world. However, the head is one, the fountain is one, and the mother is one, prolific in successive offspring. From her womb we are born ; from her suck we are fed ; from her spirit we are animated. The Spouse of Christ could not be guilty of adultery : she is chaste and unviolated ; she knows but one house ; she guards with modest chastity the holiness of one bed-chamber."

There are, besides, the clearest proofs from both Testaments, the writings of the Holy Fathers, and from the definitions of the sacred Councils, that Christ our Lord hath founded the Holy Catholic Church, that the gates of hell shall never prevail against her ; that she is the pillar and ground of truth ; and that whosoever is out of her communion, even if he should distribute all his goods to feed the poor, and if he should deliver his body to be burned, it profiteth him nothing. But as the Church is not, but Schism and Heresy, my present subject, I shall say no more about her, but shall proceed to the discussion of them.

SCHISM.

Poj^e Pelagius saith : '' Schism, which is a Greek w^ord, signifies a split. But in unity a split cannot be. Wherefore the persons communicate not with the unity who communicate with schismatics. They made for themselves parties, and separating themselves from that which is one, they have not the Spirit. To them all it has happened that because they are not one in the unity ; that, as they would be in a faction ; that, as they have not the Spirit, they cannot have the sacrifice of the body of Christ. But the question at present is not whether we ought to tolerate the wicked ones, but whether we ought to hold communion with schismatics. If they, though being full of self-conceit and abiding within their mother^s bosom, seek the truth, they should not be separated until the truth be made clear to them by reasoning. But when they sever themselves from the universal Church, every Catholic may safely desert that sect with, which he knows the universal Church, founded upon Apostolic Sees, communicates not. What schism particularly is, St. Augustin declares, saying : ' The man who rashly believes contrary to the authority of the Churches worthy of the epistolary correspondence of the Apostolical See, cannot free himself from the dreadful crime of schism.''^ Qmted in the Decretals, xxiv., Quest 1 Cha:p. 34. ' c . ,

HERESY.

St. Jerome, Comment, on Titus, iii., saith : '' There is this difference between schism and heresy, that schism by reason of the episcopal dissension, and heresy by its false doctrine, equally separates from the Church."

He saith. Comment, on Gal. v. : '' Heresy is called in the Greek from election, because each person chooses for himself that doctrine which he likes best. Wherefore, whosoever understands the Scriptures contrary to the sense of the Holy Ghost, by whom they were written, can, though he secedes not from the Church, be called a heretic."

St. Augwstin, de Utilitate Credendi, Cha;p. 1, saith : ** He is a heretic who for the sake of some temporal interest, especially of his own glory and dignity, either broaches or follows false and novel opinions ; but the man who gives ear to such people is misled by some semblance of truth and piety."

He saith, E;pist. 162: ^' The apostle, on Tit. iii., writes : A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid, knowing that he that is such an one is subverted and sinneth, being condemned by his oicn judgment. But they who with no pertinacity defend their opinion, which they engendered not through self-presumption, but which they imbibed from their deluded and erroneous parents, but who with caution and solicitude seek the truth, and who are, when they find it, open to conviction, must not, by any means, be ranked with heretics." Here a serious difficulty arises, which must be removed before we advance. St. Augustin in the first proposition saith : *'that the man who broaches or follows false and erroneous opinions is a heretic ; but in the second he saith : that the persons who with no pertinacity defend their opinion, however false and perverse, especially if they broach it

UNITY OF THE CHUKCH. 13

"not through presumption, but imbibed it from their teachers, and if they cautiously seek the truth, and be open to conviction, must not be called heretics." Here lies the difficulty : the holy Father would appear, to the light reader, to deny in the second what he teaches in the first proposition. But in order to see his consistency, the school distinction of material and formal heresies must be kept in view. An error in the faith revealed is called material, but an error in the faith revealed, and defined by the Church, is styled formal heresy. For example : the divinity of Christ Jesus had been the faith of Christendom ever since the apostolical age, being preserved in the Church by the constant and universal tradition ; but it had not been formally defined by the Church prior to the Council of Nice, in 325 ; nor would it, perhaps, be then defined had not Arius blasphemously impugned it. Firm faith in the Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection of the Son of God was equally essential unto salvation previous and subsequent to the Great Council, with this only difference, that the doubter in the mystery subsequent to the formal definition by the Council would, in addition to the want of faith, without which it is imjpossihle to jpltase God^ incur the terrific crime of disobedience to the Church. He that hears not the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican. It is manifest from the sacred text upon which St. Augustin comments — A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition^ avoid, knowing that he who is such an one^ is subverted, sinneth, and is self-condemned — that the unbeliever, no matter whether he lost the faith through the pravity of his own heart, or the false teaching of his parents or pastors, is perverted and in the state of perdition, but his society need not be shunned by the faithful, until he is, after the regular admonitions, formally excommunicated. Christ Jesus saith, John, x. 16, And other sheep I have that are not of this fold ; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one Shepherd. Kay, the whole course of the Redeemer's mission from heaven tends to bring the lost sheep, to call the whole human race into one faith and one fold, under one Shepherd. Why offer himself a sacrifice for them on the cross, or why send his beloved apostles to carry, at the risk of their lives, the light of the gospel to all nations, if these nations could be justified by the law of nature ?

St. AugustiTij De Fide ad Petrum, Chap, xxx., saith : *^ Hold thou most firmly and by no means doubt, that, excepting those persons who are baptized in their blood for the name of Christ, no man shall receive eternal life who is not here converted by faith and penance from his sins and by the Sacrament of faith and penance, that is, by baptism, liberated ; and for adults it is certainly necessary, both to do penance for their evil deeds, and to hold the Catholic faith according to the rule of truth, and to receive the Sacrament of baptism ; but for infants, who cannot of themselves believe nor perform penance for the sin which they originally contract, the Sacrament of faith which is holy baptism suffices unto salvation, as long as they are under the years of reason."

Chap, xxxvii. ^' Hold thou most firmly and yon shall by no means doubt, that every person baptised outside the Catholic Church cannot become a partaker of eternal life, if he is not before the end of his life received into and incorporated with the Catholic Church. Because, as the apostle, 1 Cor. xiii., saith : If I should have all faith, and should know all mysteries, and have not charity, 1 am nothing : for we read that in the days of the deluge none could be saved outside the ark."

Chap, xxxix. ** Hold thou most firmly and thou shalt by no means doubt, that the heretic and schismatic baptised in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, if he be not taken into the Catholic Church, though he make abundant alms, and even if he pour out his blood for the name of Christ, cannot at all be saved. For neither baptism or alms, however abund ant, nor even death endured for the name of Christ, can avail unto salvation for any man who holds not the unity of the Catholic Church, as long* as the heretical or schismatical pravity which leads unto death abides in him/'

The foregoing sentence against the poor Protestants, who have only followed the doctrine and principles of their parents and teachers, may appear to some persons cruel and uncharitable ; but let them reme;aQber that it was not originally dictated nor written by me ; that it is the embodiment of the doctrine of the Testaments, the constant and universal faith of the Church of Christ. Remember, also, that no custom however old and general, nor patrons however numerous and respectable, justifies a deviation from the divine law. For amen I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall not pass of the law, till all be fulfilled : Matt. v. 18. And again : What if some of them have not believed, shall their unbelief make the faith of God without efiect ? God forbid. Rom. iii. 3. And again : Thou in the beginning, Lord, didst found the earth, and the works of thy hands are the heavens : they shall perish, but thou shale continue : and they shall grow old as a garment. And as a vesture shalt thou change them : and they shall be changed ; but thou art the self-same, and thy years shall not fail : Heb. i. 10. Wherefore I do not fear the blame or censure of the people concerned, for having unfolded the law of God and called their attention toward the impending danger ; for having, in short, told them the truth.

Now comes under our consideration the English schism, a disastrous event for the souls of Englishmen :

it detached them from the law and Church of God, and gave to each person liberty to construe the Bible his own way, to think and to act as he will. My authorities for so saying are not private historians, but the very Acts of Parliament copied from the Statute Book which no man can doubt or gainsay. From them it will be made manifest that the Protestant religion originated not from any error or supposed defect in the old Catholic religion ; nay, that Henry YIII., who effected the schism, was strenuous during his life for the preservation among his people, of the Catholic faith of Christendom ; the same Statutes make it evident, also, that no saints or devotees, nor any person remarkable for piety and equity, but the infamous characters, libertines, adulterers, perjurers, and church-robbers, were agents and abettors in the drama.

It is well known to every reader of history that England was brought into the Catholic Church from heathenism by Pope Gregory the Great, and by St Augustin and his companions, in the year 596, and that she continued in communion with the See or Church of Rome, and in the profession of the Roman Catholic religion, down to the time of Henry VIII. 1553.

He was seventeen years married to the virtuous and irreproachable Queen Catherine of Arragon, and then took it into his head to discharge her and marry a younger dame called Anne Boleyn, who was said by some respectable historians to have been even his own daughter. He solicited a dispensation from the Pope to divorce his lawful wife, which was refused, because it is written, Matt, xix., What God hath joined together^ let not man put asunder. Hereupon Henry became furious and resolved that his brutal lust should be gratified : he cut off all communion with the See of Rome — made himself supreme head of the English Church, in spiritual as in temporal matters ; becoming therefore, to all intents and purposes,

UNITY OF THE CHURCH. l^

a schismatic, although he continued, until the hour of his death, as we will by-and-by see, to maintain within his realm the Catholic religion of Christendom. He had often burned at the same stake Catholics and heretics ; those for denying his spiritual supremacy, and these for the Catholic Seven Sacraments or any one dogma of the Catholic faith ; so that nobody knew during his reign what creed or religion he should, consistently with the will and caprice of the king, hold. In separating himself and his kingdom from the head of the Church, he laid the foundation of that irreligious chaos which broke out m his own days^ and which continues to increase without intermission amongst the Protestants from that day to this.

He succeeded his father, Henry VII., in the year 1509, to a great and prosperous kingdom, a full treasury, a happy and contented people, whom he soon brought 'to misery and confusion. We shall, by-and-by, see that civil liberty— that is, the rightful enjoyment of men's lives and property— fell by the same tyrannical hands that suppressed the Pope's supremacy. But whence our civil liberty? Whence came those laws which Lord Coke calls the -birth-rights'' of Englishmen, and which each of the States of America declare in their Constitutions to be the birth-right of the people thereof? Whence came the laws of England— are they of Protestant origin ? Did Protestants establish the three courts and the twelve judges, the trial by jury, to which England owes a large portion of her fame and greatness ? It was not a gift from Scotchmen, nor Dutchmen, nor Hessians, nor from Lutherans, Calvinists, nor Huguenots, but was the work of our own brave and wise English Catholic ances. tors ; and Chief-Justice Abbott is the heir, in an unbro^ ken line of succession, to that Bench which was erected by Alfred, who was at the very same time most zealously engaged in the founding of churches and monasteries.

If Protestants, however, still insist that the Pope's supremacy and its companions produced ignorance, superstition, and slavery, let them act the part of sincere, honest, and consistent men ; let them knock down or blow up the cathedrals, colleges, and the old churches ; let them sweep away the three courts, the twelve judges, the circuits, and the jury-boxes ; let them demolish all that we inherit from those whose religion they so unrelentingly persecute, and whose memory they affect so heartily to despise ; let them demolish all this, and they shall have left, all their own, the capacious jails and penitentiaries ; the stock-exchange ; the hot, and ancle and knee-swelling and lung-swelling cotton factories ; the whiskered standing army and its splendid barracks ; the parson-captains, parson-lieutenants, parson-ensigns, and parson-justices ; the poor-rates and pauper-houses, and, by no means forgetting that blessing which is peculiarly, and doubly, and gloriously Protestant, the NATIONAL DEBT. Ah ! people of England, how you have been deceived I

The work of blood was now begun, and it proceeded with steady pace. All who refused to take the oath of supremacy — that is to say, all who refused to become apostates — were considered and treated as traitors, and made to suffer death, accompanied with every possible cruelty and indignity. As a specimen case, let us take the treatment of John Houghton, Prior of the Charterhouse in London, which was then a convent of Carthusian monks. This Prior, for having refused to take the oath, which, observe, he could not take without committing perjury, was dragged to Tyburn. He w^as scarcely suspended when the rope was cut and he fell alive on the ground : his clothes were then stripped off ; his bowels were ripped up ; his heart and entrails were torn from his body and flung into a fire ; his head was cut from his body ; the body was divided into four quarters and par-boiled ; the quarters were then subdivided and hung up in different parts of the city, and one arm was nailed to the wall, over the entrance into his monastery ! By such means was the Protestant religion introduced into England. How different from the means by which the Catholic religion had been introduced by Pope Gregory and St. Augustin !^^ Cohhetfs Hist. ^ par. 97, and onwards. Now I solicit the reader^s serious attention to the following Acts of Parliament, which I have not borrowed, at second-hand from any private author, but copied from the Engli^ih Statute-Book.

Chapter II. English Schism

*' The thing called the Reformation was engendered in heastly lustj brought forth in hypocrisy and perfidy, and cherished and fed by plunder, devastation, and by rivers of English and Irish blood.^^ — CobbetVs Hist. Reform, par, 449.

The Act of Parliament by which the English Schism

was fomented.

''25 Henry VHL, Chap. \^,A%. 1533,* 'Whereas the King's humble and obedient subjects the Clergy of this realm of England, have not only acknowledged according to the truth that the Convocations of the same Clergy is, always hath been, and ought to be assembled only by the King's Writ, but also submitting themselves to the King's Majesty, have promised Verio sacerdotis, that they will never from thenceforth presume to attempt, allege, claim or put in use or enact, promulgate or execute any new Canons, Constitutions or Ordinance Provincial, or other, or by whatsoever name they shall be called, in the convocation, unless the King's most Royal Assent and License may to them be had, to make, promulgate and execute the same ; and that his Majesty do give the most Royal Assent and Authority in that behalf. And whereas divers Constitutions, Ordinances and Canons Provincial or Synodical, which heretofore have been enacted, and be thought not only to be much prejudicial to the King's Prerogative Royal, and repugnant to the laws and Statutes of this Realm, but also overmuch onerous to his

* Which reads, The 2^th year of the reign of Henry VIIL

Highness and his Subjects ; the said Clergy hath most humbly besought the King's Highness, that the said Constitutions and Canons may be committed to the examination and judgment of his Highness and of two and thirty persons of the King's Subjects, whereof sixteen to be of the upper and nether House of the Parliament of the Temporality, and the sixteen to be of the Clergy of this Realm ; and all the said two and thirty persons to be chosen and appointed by the King's Majesty ; and that such of the said Constitutions and Canons as shall be thought and determined by the said two and thirty persons, or the more part of them, worthy to be abrogated and annulled, shall be abolete, and made of no value accordingly ; and such other of the same Constitutions and Canons, as by the said two and thirty, or the more part of them,^hall be approved to stand with the Laws of God, and consonant to the Laws of this Realm, shall stand in their full strength and power, the King's most Royal Assent first had and obtained to the same ; Be it therefore enacted by Authority of this house of Parliament according to the said submission and Petition of the said Clergy, that they ne any of them from henceforth shall presume to attempt, allege, claim or put in use any Constitutions or Ordinances Provincial or Synodical, or any other Canons ; nor shall enact, promulgate or execute any such Canons, Constitutions, or Ordinances Provincial by whatsoever name or names they may be called, in their Convocations in time coming (which always shall be assembled by authority of the King's Writ) unless the same Clergy may have the King's most Royal Assent and License to make, promulgate and execute such Canons, Constitutions or Ordinances Provincial or Synodical upon pain of every one of said Clergy doing contrary to this Act and being thereof convict, to suffer Imprisonment, and make Fine at the King's Will.

2*

" And forasmuch as such Canons, Constitutions, and Ordinances as heretofore have been made by the Clergy of this Realm, cannot now at the Session of this present Parliament, by reason of shortness of time, be viewed, examined and determined by the King's Highness, and thirty-two persons to be chosen and appointed according to the Petition of the said Clergy in Form above rehearsed ; Be it therefore enacted by the authority aforesaid, that the King's Highness shall have power and authority to nominate and assign at his pleasure, the said wo and thirty persons of his Subjects, whereof sixteen o be of said Clergy, and sixteen of the Temporalty of the Upper and Nether House of the Parliament ; and if any of the said two and thirty persons so chosen shall happen to die before their full determination, then his Highness to nominate other from time to tii^e of the said two Houses of Parliament to supply the number of the said two and thirty, and that the same two and thirty, by his Highness so to be named, shall have power and authority to view, search and examine the said Canons, Constitutions, and Ordinances Provincial or Synodical heretofore made, and such of them as the King's Highness, and the said two and thirty, or the more part of them, shall deem and adjudge worthy to be continued, kept and obeyed, shall be from thenceforth kept, obeyed and executed within this Realm, so that the King's most Royal Assent under his Great Seal be first had to the same ; and the residue of the said Canons, Constitutions and Ordinances Provincial, which the King's Highness and the said two and thirty persons or the more part of them, shall not approve or deem and judge worthy to be abolete, abrogate and made frustrate, shall from thenceforth be void and of none effect, and never be put in execution within this Realm. Provided always. That no Canons, Constitutions or Ordinances shall be made or put in execution within this Realm by the authority of the Convocation of the Clergy which shall be contrarient or repugnant to the King's Prerogative Royal, or the Customs, Laws, or Statutes of this Realm ; anything contained in this act to the contrary hereof notwithstanding.

'* And be it further enacted by authority aforesaid, That from the Feast of Easter which shall be in the year of our Lord God 1534, no manner of appeals, shall be had, provoked or made out of this Realm or out of any of the King's Dominions, to the Bishop of Rome nor to the See of Rome, in any causes or matters happening to be in Convention, and having their commencement and beginning in any of the Courts within this Realm, or within any of the King's Dominions, what nature, condition or quality soever they be of ; but that all manner of Appeals, what nature or condition soever they be of, or what Cause or Matter soever they concern, shall be made or had by the parties grieved, or having cause of Appeal, after such manner, form and condition as is limited for Appeals to be had and prosecuted within this Realm in causes of Matrimony, Tythes, Oblations and Obventions, by a Statute thereof made and established sithen the beginning of this present Parliament, and according to the form and effect of the said Estatute ; any Usage, Custom, Prescription or anything or things to the contrary hereof notwithstanding.

" And for lack of justice at, or in any of the Courts of the Archbishops of this Realm or in any the King's Dominions, it shall be lawful to the Parties grieved to Appeal to the King's Majesty in the King's Court of Chancery ; and that upon every such Appeal, a Commission shall be directed under the Great Seal to such persons as shall be named by the King's Highness, his Heirs or Successors, like as in case of Appeal from the AdmiraPs Court, to hear and definitely determine such Appeals, and the causes concerning the same. Which Commissioners, so by the King's Highness, his Heirs or successors to be named or appointed, shall have full power and authority to hear and definitely determine every such appeal, with the causes and all their circumstances concerning the same ; and that such judgment and sentence as the said Commissioners shall make and decree, in and upon any such Appeal, shall be good and effectual, and also definitive ; and no further Appeals to be had or made from the said Commissioners for the same.

'^ And if any person or persons at any time after the said Feast of Easter, provoke or sue any manner of Appeals what nature or condition soever they be of, to the said Bishop of Rome, or to the See of Rome, or do procure or execute any manner of Process from the See of Rome, or by authority thereof, to the derogation, or let of the due execution of this Act, or contrary to the same, that then every such person or persons so doing, their aiders, counselors and abettors shall incur and run into the dangers, pains and penalties contained and limited in the Act of Provision and Praemunire made 16th year of Richard II. against such as sue to the Court of Rome against the King's Crown and Prerogative Royal."

Remark. — England was brought into the fold of Christ by St. Augustin and his companions about the year five hundred and ninety-six, and might continue therein till the end of time, had not Henry VIII. taken it into his head to divorce his lawful wife and cohabit with another, for which he was first admonished and then excommunicated, March 23, 1533, by Pope Clement VII. Every good shepherd would do the same in similar circumstance : he reproves, entreats and reprimands in all patience and doctrine, but if the sinner continue obstinate, he separates him, lest the contagion spread. Whilst the people are corrected, shall the Rulers have liberty to set the law of God and public decency at defiance ? Henry's brutal lust went ahead, his anger knew no bounds. By the Act just recited he severed himself and the kingdom from the Church, and made himself head of the Church of England ; decreeing the penalties of praemunire against all persons who would correspond with the Pope or impugn his own headship. The Redeemer shed his blood and sent his apostles to call all nations into one fold ; but Harry and his servile Parliament scatter them again. The English and Scotch, with a few honorable exceptions, sold the religion and conformed to Henry's Church, whilst the Irish in general remained faithful to the religion of Christ Jesus. All persons desirous for a true and faithful picture of this public and disastrous event, would do well to procure Cobbett's History of the Reformation, together with his Legacies, the one to the Parsons, and the other to the Laborers. He who was a Protestant and member of Parliament, drew his narrative from public and well known facts, and authentic document?, and made his publications in London before the eyes of the Government.