'I told you, sister, how devoted I was to painting; and this
taste my husband spared no pains to gratify. He took me, one day,
to one of the most splendid picture-galleries in Paris, and
there, amongst other _chef d'oeuvres_, I noticed a most
beautiful picture of St. Mary Magdalen. I stood entranced before
it: it represented a graceful, slender figure kneeling fore a
rustic altar. The hands were clasped in prayer, and the face was
slightly raised toward heaven; but anything so exquisite as the
blended look of remorse and love upon those splendid features I
never saw; it was as though the raining tears had softened the
dazzling beauty and brightness of the large, liquid eyes, and had
blanched the roses on both cheek and lip, and had left over the
fair face a lingering light, soft and spiritual. Long golden
tresses waved over her shoulders, and lay (even as she knelt)
upon the ground in their profusion and luxuriance. Hope and love
were written on the noble brow, while such humility, such
self-abasement were expressed in the prostrate, kneeling figure,
that at one glance the history was read. I forgot time, place,
and all things--my whole soul absorbed in the wondrous beauty of
the picture. My husband had left me to procure a catalogue, when
suddenly a heavy hand was laid upon my shoulder, and a voice
hissed, rather than spoke, into my ear: 'Ay, look--for the sin
that branded her is marked upon your brow!' The hot breath of the
speaker flushed upon my cheek--a low, scornful laugh, and it was
gone. Bewildered, I turned round, but saw no one who seemed
likely to have addressed me or who seemed to notice me. A few
paces from me, looking intently upon a small painting, there
stood a tall, stately lady, and no one else was near. I hastened,
when I recovered the use of my faculties, to ask her if she had
seen any one speak to me, when she quickly arose, and left the
room. As she turned to pass to the door, I saw her face; it was
handsome, but so cold and haughty, and with so fierce an
expression of self-will, that the words froze upon my lips; it
was a strange face, too, and it haunted me all day. I was
bewildered; but I did not tell my husband.
{785}
I did not wish to trouble or annoy him. I was frightened and out
of spirits, and when evening came, my husband would insist upon
my going to the opera. I went; but I could not forget those
dreadful words. The opera was beautiful; but my attention would
wander. Looking round the boxes, I suddenly saw the same lady I
had met in the picture-gallery. Her handsome, haughty face bore
an expression that surprised me; her large, glittering eyes were
fixed upon me, and a smile of triumph, malicious and revengeful,
curled her lip. I turned to my husband and said: 'I do wish,
Percy, you would tell me who that lady is there opposite with the
pink dress.' He turned, at my request; but when he saw her, his
face became deadly pale, and convulsed with emotion. 'Do you know
her?--are you ill?--what is the matter, Percy?' I cried.
"'Nothing,' said my husband, 'but the heat is too great; will you
come home, Eva?'
"I rose, terrified, to leave the box, and turning again to look
at the lady, I found her gone. As we were driving home, when my
husband became more composed, I told him of my adventure in the
picture-gallery, and asked him if he could possibly conjecture
the meaning of it.
"'Why, why, Eva, did you not tell me this before? Now, do not be
frightened; but I have decided to leave Paris by the midnight
train: it is now ten o'clock; will you be ready?'
"'Yes; but why this haste?'
"'Ask me no questions, Eva; only hasten, and let us be gone.'
"My husband's manner was stern, and he became so silent that I
dared not interrupt him. Directly we arrived at home, he left me
to arrange for our journey, and, ringing for my maid, I told her
to prepare for instant departure. I was tired, and my head ached
with useless conjectures. I felt a foreboding of coming misery
that I could not account for. I was in the drawing-room, packing
a few books, when a servant entered and told me I was wanted. I
said I could not see any one, I was engaged; but in a few minutes
the man returned, and said the lady insisted upon seeing me, and
before he had finished speaking, the lady I had seen at the opera
stood before me.
"'You are leaving Paris,' she said, with a sneering smile; 'but
it is important that you should grant me a few moments; perhaps I
may alter your plans.'
"I bowed and the servant withdrew. She stood and surveyed me for
some minutes with a strange, glittering look in her wild eyes;
and then coming to me, she said:
"'You are passing fair. Percy Montford's second choice speaks
well for his taste.'
"'I do not understand you, madam,' I said proudly; 'nor do I see
by what right you intrude upon me or use my husband's name.'
"'Your husband, girl!' and a mocking laugh rang in my ears. 'Nay,
Percy Montford is no husband of yours.'
"'You are mad,' I replied. But she interrupted me--
"'Mad! No; and yet, I tell you, I am Lady Montford! You do not
believe me? I will tell you again. Sixteen years ago, when I was
young, and the world said beautiful, I became the lawful wife of
the man who has deceived you.'
"I rose indignantly, and grasped the bell-rope.
{786}
"'Nay,' said she, 'pause one minute before you summon aid or
assistance. I repeat--sixteen years ago I was married. My husband
had then no title; he was simply Mr. Ingram; he lived with me one
year, and then, finding my temper hot and my spirit bitter, he
left me, (amply provided for, it is true,) and has never seen me
since. I have followed him, I have tracked him from city to city.
I found out his admiration for you; I knew he would marry you
secretly--openly he dared not, for fear of me. I could have
saved you then, but I would not; I hated you because you were
beautiful and good, and I have watched and waited with a fierce
longing for the moment when your cup of joy was full, that I
might dash it from your lips, and turn it to the poisoned chalice
I have so long drunk. You still disbelieve me? Look,' and she
took some papers and laid before me. My hands shook, and my sight
failed me when I tried to read them; but I saw enough; and
covering my face, I sank on my knees.
"I remember now, sister, that in my madness and my grief I knelt
to that woman, and I prayed to her to unsay her fearful words. I
can remember how she rejected me, how she scorned me and my wild
prayers, and how proudly she stood over me, gloating in my
misery.
"'No, Eva Leason! you broke your mother's heart--you had no mercy
upon her, and I have none upon you. I am claiming only justice, I
am speaking only truth.'
"'Percy!' I cried, 'come and save me!'
"'Ah! Percy, save her! You are so noble and good! You never
deceived her, never betrayed her!' And then I remember no more,
save that darkness seemed to come upon me until I lost all sense
and feeling.
"When I recovered in some degree my recollection, I was lying
upon a sofa, and my husband--ah! mine no longer!--knelt beside
me, his face and head hidden, and yet I knew that he was weeping.
She was gone.
"I sprang to my feet.' Percy,'I cried, 'tell me, is this true?
You found her here. Has she told me the truth?' And I waited for
his answer with my life depending on it.
"'I will deceive you no more, Eva. Alas! she has told you true.'
"'And you have deceived me, stolen me from my mother and my home,
and made me an outcast!' My heart seemed on fire. I tore the ring
from my finger and the jewels from my hair, and threw them at his
feet; but he knelt, and passionately implored me not to leave
him, to listen to his story, to have mercy on him. But no, I
heeded no word; I tore my dress from his hands; I rushed from
him; I took no time; I had but one thought, and that was to fly.
I was delirious with grief and anger; my cloak and bonnet were in
the hall; I threw them on; and before Lord Montford knew where I
was, I had taken a carriage, and was on my road to the station.
My heart ached for my mother. I remember but very little else. I
crossed the Channel, and my passage took nearly all my money: I
had just enough to reach London, and then I was penniless. It
seemed to me that I wandered for hours in the dreary streets, and
at last I fell. I was picked up and carried here. Now, tell me,
sister, was not my punishment bitter? Can you wonder that I
craved to die, and hide my shame and misery?"
"You are much sinned against, Eva; but tell me how could Lord
Montford marry you when he knew his first wife was living?"
"I do not know, sister; I cannot think; yet now I remember, that
night he told me that he had married her when he was quite young,
and had never known peace or rest since; and that, when he knew
me, he loved me so and feared to lose me, he could not resist the
temptation.
{787}
Did I tell you, sister, that the first thing I heard when I came
to England was that my mother was dead? I saw it in a paper."
But, dear reader, I shall weary you if I repeat all poor Eva's
long history; I must hasten and finish my story.
Some weeks after this, I was sitting with her, reading to her,
when Mother Frances called me hastily from the room. I had told
her Eva's history, and I felt from her manner that she had
something of importance to say concerning her.
"Sister," said the superioress, "there is a gentleman in the
convent parlor, and he has sent in his card. See, it is Lord
Montford."
"O Mother Frances! what shall we do? what can we say to him? He
has, then, traced poor Eva here!"
"Let us first discover his errand, and then we will act as seems
best."
When we entered the parlor, Lord Montford rose, and when he
addressed us, his voice trembled.
"May I ask," he began, "if a lady who some time since obtained
shelter at the hospital, is still here? I have traced her here;
can I be allowed to see her?"
"Lord Montford," said Mother Frances, "Eva's history is well
known to me; and I have no hesitation in saying that, while this
roof shelters her, she shall be safe from your further
deceptions."
"Nay, you mistake, Rev. Mother, I am come to offer Eva the only
reparation in my power. As you know my errors, concealment is
useless. My first wife is dead, and I am come to make her my own
again."
It took a long time to prepare Eva for this news; I dreaded it.
She was so near the verge of the grave, that I feared the least
agitation would be fatal. She bore it calmly; and when I had told
her, Lord Montford entered the room, and I left them together.
Would, dear reader, that I could tell you, as the old story-books
do, that Eva lived long and happily; but alas! no; she died three
weeks after this, reconciled to God and to the church.
Eva Lady Montford lies in her quiet grave; violets are growing
where her bright head was laid low. The winds chant drearily
among the trees that shelter her tomb; and if you visit it when
the morning sun gilds the flowers, or the moon silvers the
leaves, you will always meet there one who, if he sinned deeply,
has repented more deeply still.
From the wind that sighs over Eva's grave, comes there, my dear
young reader, no warning to you? Is there no secret hoarded in
that heart of yours, that a mother's eye has never penetrated;
and if so, will it lead to your happiness in this world or the
next? Ah! no; concealment or deception in the end works misery,
let the cause be what it may. A pure and open heart before God,
and a just and blameless one before the world, is my prayer for
you.
--------
{788}
The Church and Her Attributes.
The heterodox of all shades recognize, in some form or in some
sense, what they call the church of Christ, and hold it in some
way necessary, or at least useful, to salvation. The Anglicans
profess to believe in a church founded by Christ himself, of
which they claim to be a pure or purified branch; the
Presbyterians profess to believe that there is a church, out of
which there is no salvation; the Methodists and Baptists call
their organizations churches, and hold them to be parts or
branches of one universal or catholic church; and even Socinians,
Unitarians, and Universalists, who deny the incarnation, speak of
the church, though precisely what they mean by it is not easy to
say. So far as we know, there is no sect, school, or party, not
included among those whom our theologians call infidels or
apostates, that does not profess a belief, of some sort, in the
holy catholic and apostolic church of the creed.
In a controversy between us and the heterodox, the question is
not, _An sit ecclesia?_ but, _Quid sit ecclesia?_ The
controversy hinges, not on the existence of the church, but on
what the church is, and only rarely on which is the true church;
for when all have once come to agree as to what the church is,
there will be little dispute as to which she is. We start, then,
with the assumption that there is something to be called the
church of Christ, and proceed at once to point out what she is.
The church of Christ, taken in its most comprehensive sense, in
all states, places, and times, is, says Billuart: "_Congregatio
fidelium in vero Dei cultu adunatorum sub Christo capite_--the
congregation of the faithful, united under Christ the head, in
the true worship of God." Most of the heterodox, as well as all
Catholics, will accept this definition. But this definition
includes the faithful who lived before Christ; as well as those
who have lived since, and as those who lived and died before the
incarnation could not enter into heaven before the way was opened
by our Lord himself, who is the first-born from the dead, and the
resurrection and the life, a definition more particularly adapted
to the state of the church since the coming of Christ is needed.
The church has indeed existed from the beginning; but before the
Word was actually incarnated, she existed by prophecy and promise
only; but Christ having come and fulfilled the promise, the
church exists now in fact, in reality, for the reality foretold
and promised has come. Hence St. Paul, in referring to the
faithful of the Old Testament, says, "And all these being
approved by the testimony of faith, received not the promise"--or
the fulfilment of the promise--"God providing something better
for us, that they should not be perfected without us." Heb. xi.
39, 40. The church, before Christ, was incomplete, and needed
further fulfilment or perfecting; the church in the state in
which she exists since Christ, is the church realized, completed,
or perfected. According to this state, and as the kingdom of God
on earth, she is, as Billuart again defines: "Societas fidelium
baptizatorum ejusdem fidei professione, eorumdem sacramentorum
participatione, eodem cultu inter se adunatorum sub uno capite
Christo in coelis, et sub ejus in terris vicario summo
pontifice--the society of the faithful, baptized in the
profession of the same faith, united in the participation of the
same sacraments and the same worship, under one head, Christ in
heaven, and on earth under his vicar, the supreme pontiff."
[Footnote 70]
[Footnote 70: Billuart, _De Reg. Fid._ Dissert. III.
_De Eccl._ Art. I.]
{789}
All will not accept the whole of this definition; but all will
agree that the church is a society embracing all the faithful,
united in the true worship of God under one head, Jesus Christ in
heaven; but the heterodox deny the union under one head or one
regimen on earth. But what is a congregation or society of the
faithful under Christ its head? A congregation or society under
one head implies both unity and multiplicity, either many made
one, or one manifesting or explicating itself in many, and in
either sense supposes more than the heterodox in general
understand by the church. The faithful, congregated or associated
under one head, Christ, are one body, for Christ is the head of
the congregation or society, not merely of the individuals
severally; but the heterodox generally, in our times at least,
make the church consist solely of individuals aggregated to the
collective body of believers, because already united as
individuals by faith and love to Christ, as their head; which
supposes Christ to be the head of each individual of the church,
but not of the church herself. According to this view, men are
regenerated outside of the society or church, and join the church
because supposed to be regenerated or born again, not that they
may be born again. The church in this case is simply the
aggregate of regenerated persons, and derives her life from
Christ through them, instead of their deriving their life from
Christ the head through her. The one view makes the church a
general term, an abstraction, performing and capable of
performing no part in the regeneration and sanctification of
souls; the other makes the church a reality, a real existence,
living a real life not derived from her members, and the real
medium through which our Lord carries on his mediatorial work;
and therefore union with her is not only profitable to spiritual
life, but necessary to its birth in the soul, and therefore to
individual salvation. This must be the case if we suppose Christ
to be the head of the congregation or society called the church,
and of individuals severally only as they are affiliated to her.
There is, we suspect, a deeper philosophy in the church than the
heterodox in general are aware of. "The church," it was said in
this magazine, in one of the essays on _The Problems of the
Age_, "is the human race in its highest sense," that is, the
regenerated human race, the human race in the teleological order,
not in the order of natural generation, which is simply cosmic
and initial. This supposes in the church something more than
individuals, as, indeed, does society itself. With nothing but
individualities brought together there is no society, there is
only aggregation, because there is no unity, nothing that is one
and common to all the individuals brought together. In all real
society there is a social principle, a social life, in which
individuals participate, but which is itself not individual, nor
derived from the individuals associated. Thus in every real
nation, not a pseudo nation made up of the forced juxtaposition
of distinct and often hostile communities, there is a real
national life.
{790}
An insult to the nation each one feels is an insult to himself;
and if the existence of the nation is threatened, every one in
whose heart throbs the national life, rises, and all, in the fine
Biblical expression, "march as one man" to the rescue, prepared
to save the nation or die in its defence.
The unity of social life is still more manifest when we come to
the race. We are aware of the old quarrel between the nominalists
and conceptualists on the one hand, and the old realists on the
other; but we disposed of that controversy in the article
entitled _An Old Quarrel_, in the Magazine for May of last
year, and established, we think, the reality of genera and
species, while we denied that of abstractions, or simple mental
conceptions. If we deny the reality of genera and species, we
must deny the fact of generation, and the Catholic dogmas of the
unity of the species and of original sin. If all men have not
proceeded from Adam by way of natural generation, there can be no
unity of the species; and if no unity of the species, there can
be no original sin, which is "the sin in which we are born," the
sin of origin, the sin of the race, transmitted by natural
generation from Adam to all his posterity. To deny the reality,
of the species is to deny this, is to deny generation, that we
are born in any sense of Adam; to deny generation is to deny
regeneration; and to deny regeneration is to deny the whole
Christian or teleological order. We cannot then logically be
nominalists or conceptualists and Christian believers at one and
the same time.
We do not pretend that the species subsists without
individualization any more than we do that the individual can
subsist without the species. What we contend for is, that in
every individual there is that which is not individual, but
distinguishable from the individuality, which is common to all
the individuals of the species, and which in men binds all men,
from the first to the last, together in the unity of their
natural head or progenitor. The species is more than the
individual, operates in the individual, determines his specific
nature, and separated from which the individual is nothing; but
the species does not subsist without individualization, and could
not be explicated by natural generation if not individualized.
Yet the entire race was individualized in Adam.
We can now understand the assertion that "The church is the human
race in the highest sense," the regenerated race in its
progenitor, its unity and reality, therefore in its real head, in
the supernatural order. The head of the regenerated race, or the
race in the supernatural or teleological order, is Christ
himself, the second Adam, the Lord from heaven. Hence the apostle
says, (i Cor. xv.,) "As in Adam all die, so in Christ all shall
be made alive." The apostle, in this fifteenth chapter of his
Epistle to the Corinthians, draws a parallel between the first
Adam and the last Adam, which must hold good be the race as born
of the first Adam, and the race as born anew of the last Adam;
and, therefore, the race born anew must hold to Christ in the
order of regeneration a relation strictly analogous to that borne
by it in the natural or initial order, to the first Adam. The
difference is, that in the natural order the race is explicated
by natural generation, and in the supernatural or teleological
order by the election of grace. But the relation between the
members and the head is no less real in the one case than in the
other, and we live in the order of regeneration, if born again,
the life of Christ as really and truly as in the natural order we
live the life of Adam. The church, then, proceeds as really
through grace from Christ, the supernatural head, as the race
itself proceeds from Adam, the natural head.
{791}
This view of the church is sustained by Saint Augustine, who
represents Christ as both the head and the body of the church,
and says Christ and his members are the whole Christ--_totus
Christus_. If we view the church in her origin, her principle,
her life, that is, in her head and soul, she is Christ himself;
if we view her as the congregation or society of the faithful,
made one in the unity of the head, the church is the body of
Christ. Hence, Saint Paul teaches, (Colossians i. 18,) that
Christ "is the head of the body; the church, who is the
beginning, the first-born from the dead;" "the head, from which
all the body, by joints and bands being supplied with nourishment
and compacted groweth unto the increase of God." (Ib. ii. 19.)
"Christ is the head of the church; he is the Saviour of his
body." (Eph. v. 23.) "Now you are the body of Christ, and members
of member." (i Cor. xii. 27.) "We are members of his body, of his
flesh, and of his bones." (Eph. v. 30.) "And if one member suffer
anything, all the members suffer with it: or if one member glory,
all the members rejoice with it." (i Cor. xii. 26.) Nothing can
more clearly or unequivocally assert Christ as the head of the
church, the church as the body of Christ, or the members of the
church as members of his body and members of one another, or the
perfect solidarity of Christ and the church, and of the members
of the church in Christ, and with one another, as implied in the
definition of the church quoted from Billuart.
The men of the world do not understand this, because they
recognize no existence but that of individual things, and have no
conception of unity. What transcends the individual or
particular, is, for them, an empty word, or a pure abstraction,
therefore nothing. They have never asked themselves how
individuals or particulars can exist without the general or
universal, nor how there can be men without the generic man. What
has not for them a sensible existence is, indeed, no existence at
all. They seem never to reflect that, if there were no
supersensible reality, there could be no sensible reality. The
sensible is mimetic, depends on the intelligible or noetic which
it copies or imitates. Take away the intelligible or
non-sensible, and the sensible would be a mere appearance in
which nothing would appear--less than a vain shadow.
We have defined the church in her origin, principle, and life, to
be Christ himself; as the society of the faithful, to which all
the faithful are affiliated, to be the body of Christ. But the
principle on which we have asserted this union of the faithful
with Christ, applies only to those who are in the order of
regeneration; for in that order only is Christ our head, or are
we, as individuals, affiliated to him, and included in him, as
the father of regenerated humanity; and hence they who die
unregenerated, suffer the penalty of original sin and of such
actual sins as they may have committed. How then do we enter that
order? By the new birth; by being born of Christ into it, as we
enter the natural order by being born of Adam. The Pelagians,
Socinians, Unitarians, and Universalists reject the distinction
of the two orders, and recognize no regenerated humanity; the
Calvinists, Congregationalists, Baptists, Presbyterians,
Methodists, Evangelicals, etc., hold that we are translated from
the order of nature into the order of grace by the direct,
immediate, and irresistible operation of the Holy Ghost.
{792}
But the Holy Ghost, in his immediate operations, is God acting in
his divine nature, and the medium of our regeneration is God in
his human nature, the Man Christ Jesus, who, on this view, would
be superseded as the mediator of God and men. The order of
regeneration originates in the Man Christ Jesus, the Word made
flesh, or God in his human nature, not in God in his divine
nature; and therefore, to be in that order, we must be born of
God in his humanity. If we could be regenerated by the Holy
Ghost, or God in his divine nature alone, without the
intervention of God in his human nature, or the Man Christ Jesus
as the medium or mediator, the incarnation would go for nothing,
and we should be made by the new birth, sons of God in his divine
nature; since neither the Father nor the Holy Ghost assumed
flesh; as the eternal Word is himself the son of God, and God as
he is God; which, we need not say, is simply impossible and
absurd. By the hypostatic union with the Word, man becomes God in
his personality, but not in his nature, for the human nature
remains always human nature. The two natures remain, as we are
taught in the condemnation of the Monophysites, for ever distinct
in the unity of the one divine person. By regeneration we are
elevated, indeed, to be sons of God, but sons of God by
participation with the Eternal Son in his human, not in his
divine nature. We are made joint-heirs with Christ, and sons of
God by adoption, not by nature.
There is no act conceivable without principle, medium, and end.
In the creation of man and the universe, the three persons of the
holy and indivisible Trinity concur, but in diverse respects--the
Father as principle, the Son or Word as medium, and the Holy
Ghost as end or consuminator. In the regeneration, which St. Paul
calls a "new creation," the whole Trinity also concur, the Father
as principle, the Son as medium, and the Holy Ghost as end,
consummator, or sanctifier; but here it is the Son in his human
nature, not in his divine nature, that is the medium; for St.
Paul says, "There is one God, and one mediator of God and men,
the man Christ Jesus." The Son, in his human nature, is the
medium of the whole order of regeneration, or of our redemption,
new birth, and return to God as our final cause or last end. We
must then be begotten of him in his humanity by the Holy Ghost,
as the condition of being born into the regeneration, and
becoming members of the regenerated human race. The heterodox
overlook this fact, and even when asserting the incarnation,
leave it no office in the regeneration and sanctification of
souls, or, at best, no continuous or permanent office. According
to them, the mediatorial work was completed when Christ died on
the cross, at least, when he ascended into heaven; and now the
salvation of souls is carried on by the Holy Ghost without any
medium or any participation of God in his human nature, as if one
person of the indivisible Trinity could operate alone, without
the concurrence of the other two! This, if it were possible,
would imply the denial of the unity of God, and the assertion of
the three persons of the Godhead as three Gods, not three persons
in one God. The heterodox, the supernaturalists, as well as the
naturalists, really deny the whole order of grace as proceeding
from God in his human nature, its only possible medium, and hence
the reason why they so universally shrink from calling Mary the
Mother of God, and accuse of idolatry the devotion which
Catholics pay to her.
{793}
Though the eternal Word took the flesh he assumed from her, yet,
as that flesh is not in their view the medium of our spiritual
life, they cannot see in her, more than in any other pure and
holy woman, any connection with our regeneration, and our
spiritual or eternal life. They cannot see that, in denying her
claims, they virtually reject the whole Christian order.
The difficulty, though not the mystery, disappears the moment we
recognize the sacramental principle, which it was the prime
object of the Reformers to eliminate from the Christian system.
In the definition of the church, she is said to be "the society
of the faithful baptized in the profession of the same faith, and
united _inter se_ in the participation of the same
_sacraments_." The sacraments are all visible signs
signifying, that is, communicating grace to the recipient. Among
these sacraments is one, which is the sacrament of faith, the
sacrament of regeneration, that is, baptism, in which we receive
the gift of faith, and are born members of Christ's body, and
united to him as our head, and as the head of the regenerated
race. In baptism we are regenerated, born into the supernatural
order, the kingdom of heaven, and have the life of Christ infused
by the Holy Ghost into us, so that henceforth we become flesh of
his flesh, bone of his bone, one with him, and one with all the
faithful in him, as really united to him in the spiritual order,
as we are to Adam in the natural order, and derive our spiritual
life from him as really as we derive from God, through Adam, our
natural life. This is what we understand St. Paul to mean when he
says, "It is written, the first man, Adam, was made a living
soul; the last Adam a quickening spirit." The sacraments are all
effective _ex opere operato_, and through them the Holy
Ghost infuses the grace special to each, when the recipient
opposes no obstacle to it. Infants are incapable of offering any
obstacle, and are regenerated by baptism in Christ and joined to
him. In the case of adults who have grown up without faith, the
_prohibentia_, or obstacles to faith, must be removed, by
reasons that convince the understanding and produce what
theologians call _fides humama_, or human faith, such faith
as we have in the truth of historical events; but this faith is
wholly in the natural order, although it embraces things in the
supernatural order as its material object, and does not at all
unite us to Christ as our head. It brings us, when faithful to
our convictions, to the sacrament of baptism, but cannot
introduce us into the order of regeneration; the faith that
unites us to the body of Christ, and through it with Christ
himself, or divine faith, is the gift of God, and is infused into
the soul by the Holy Ghost in the sacrament of baptism itself.
[Footnote 71]
[Footnote 71: Theologians generally teach that an act of
supernatural faith, elicited by the aid of a special
transient grace, precedes the infusion of the habit of
faith.--Ed. Catholic World.]
Hence, in her present state, only the baptized belong to the
society called the church of Christ, and only the baptized are
united as one body under Christ, their head in heaven, or under
his vicar on earth. The satisfaction or atonement made by our
Lord to divine justice, though it was made for all, and is ample
for the sins of the whole world, avails individuals, or becomes
practically theirs, only as through baptism, _vel in re, vel in
voto,_ they are really united to Him, and are in Him as their
head, as we were in Adam; and hence the dogma, _extra ecclesiam
nulla salus,_ judged by the world to be so harsh and
illiberal, is founded in the very nature and design of the
church, of the whole mediatorial work of Christ, and in the very
reason of the incarnation itself.
{794}
To say a man can be saved out of the church, is saying simply a
man can be saved out of Christ, without being born of Him,--as
impossible as for one to be a man and, in humanity, without being
born of Adam. The justice, the sanctity, the merits, the life of
Christ, can be really ours, only as we are really assimilated to
His body, and are in Him as our living head, our Father in the
order of grace; and hence it was not idly or inconsiderately,
that St. Cyprian, one of the profoundest of the fathers, said:
"He cannot have God for his father, who has not the church for
his mother." It lies in the very nature of the case.
The other sacraments are channels of grace from the head to the
body and its members; and are all means of sustaining or
restoring the life begotten in baptism, preserving, diffusing, or
defending the faith, bringing up children in the nurture of the
Lord, augmenting the life and compacting the union of the body of
Christ, and solacing individuals in their illnesses, and
comforting and strengthening souls in their passage through the
dark valley of death. The sacramental system is complete, and
provides for all our spiritual wants. Baptism initiates us into
the life of Christ; the Holy Eucharist nourishes that life in us;
Penance restores it when lost by sin; Confirmation gives strength
and heroic courage to withstand and repel the assaults of Satan;
Orders provide priests for offering the unbloody sacrifice, the
stewards of the mysteries of Christ, intercessors for the people,
teachers, directors, and defenders, in the name of Christ, of the
Christian society; Matrimony institutes and blesses the Christian
family; and Extreme Unction heals the sick, or sustains,
strengthens, and consoles the departing. Indeed, the sacraments
meet all the necessities of the soul, in both the natural and the
supernatural orders, from its birth to its departure, and even
leave us not on the brink of the grave, but accompany us till
received into the choir of the just made perfect.
The medium of all sacramental grace is the Man Christ Jesus, the
Word made flesh, and the sacraments are the media through which
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ flows out from him, the
Fountain,--the grace that begets the new life, justifies,
sanctifies, and makes pleasing to God, we mean,--is infused by
the Holy Ghost into the soul, and constitutes alike the vital
principle of the individual, and of the whole body, quickening
and sustaining each. In rejecting sacramental grace, the
heterodox separate the individual soul, and also the church
herself, from all real communion or intercourse with Christ, or
God in his human nature, and accept the seminal principle of
rationalism, into which we see them everywhere falling. They
dissolve Christ, and render the Word efficient only in his divine
nature. The sacraments are the media of our union with God in his
human nature, through which the hypostatic union is, in some
sort, repeated in us, or made by the Holy Ghost practically
effectual to the justice and sanctity of believers, and the
perfecting of the church, which is the body of Christ; and as
this grace, in its principle and medium, is Christ himself, all
who are born of it are born of him, and the life which they live
in and by it is the one life of God in his humanity.
{795}
Looking at the church, in what theologians call her soul, she is
literally and truly the man Christ Jesus, and looking at her as
the whole congregation of the faithful, she is the body of
Christ, and related to him as the body to the soul. It is this
intimate relation of the church to God in his human nature, that
led Moehler to represent the church as in some sort the
continuation on earth, in a visible form, of the Incarnation; and
she is certainly so closely united to his divine personality,
that we may say truly, that he is her personality, as really as
he is the personality of the flesh he assumed and hypostatically
united to himself. Perrone says that, if we exclude from this
view all pantheistic conceptions, it is scriptural, and,
moreover, sustained by the fathers, especially St. Athanasius,
who says, in writing of the Incarnation, "Et cum Petrus dicat:
certissime sciat ergo omnis domus Israel, quia et Dominum eum, et
Christum fecit Deus, hunc Jesum quern vos crucifixistis: non de
divinitate ejus dicit, quod Dominum ipsum et Christum fuerit, sed
de humanitate ejus, quae est UNIVERSA ECCLESIA, quae in ipso
dominatur et regnat, postquam crucifixus ipse est: et quae
erigitur ad regnum coelorum, ut cum illa regnet, qui seipsum pro
illa exinanivit et qui induta servili forma, _ipsam
assumpsit_." [Footnote 72] Christ, in his humanity, is the
universal church, which rules and reigns in him. We cannot study
the great fathers of the church too assiduously, and we wish we
had earlier known it. The doctrine we are trying to set forth is
there.
[Footnote 72: Edit. Maur. opp. tom. i. p. 2, p. 887; apud
Perrone, Praelect. Locis Theolog. p. I. c. 2; _De Anima
Ecclesiae_, Art. I.]
There is nothing here that favors pantheism:
1. Because the hypostatic union is by the creative act of God,
as much so as the creation of Adam.
2. Because, although God is really the church, regarded in her
soul, it is God in his human, which is for ever distinct
from his divine nature, and therefore in his created nature.
3. Because the Word was incarnated in an individual, not in the
species, as some rationalists dream, save as the species was
individualized in the individual nature he assumed; and,
4. Because, though Christ is identically the soul, the
informing principle, the life of the church, the individuals
affiliated to the body of the church retain their
individuality, their human personality, and therefore their
own free-will, personal identity, activity, or their
character as free moral agents.
Not all individuals apparently affiliated to the body of the
church are really assimilated to her, and vitally united to the
body of Christ. They pertain to the society externally, but not
by an inward union with Christ, the head and soul. They are, as
St. Augustine says, "_in_ not _of_ the church," as the
dead particles of matter in the human body which receive not, or
have ceased to receive, life from it, and are constantly flying
or cast off. _Gratia supponit naturam._ All the operations
of grace presuppose nature, and nature has always the power to
resist grace. Without grace nature cannot concur with grace; yet
even they who have been born again, and have entered into the
order of regeneration, are always able to fall away, or back,
practically, into the natural order. Not every individual in the
church is assimilated to her, nor every one who is assimilated to
her will continue to the end. But she herself survives their loss
and remains always one and the same body of Christ.
{796}
We have dwelt at great length on this view of the church, not
because we have any special partiality or aptitude for mystic
theology, but because we have wished to show that the church is
not something purely external and arbitrary. We hold that all the
works of God are real, and have a real and solid reason of being
in the order of things which he has seen proper to create. He
does nothing in the supernatural order, any more than in the
natural order, without a reason, and a good and valid reason. We
have wished to get at the reality, and to show that Catholicity
is not a sham, a make-believe, a reputing of things to be that
are not; but a reality, as real in its own order as the order of
nature itself, and, in fact, even more so, as nature is mimetic,
and Catholicity, to borrow a term from Plato, is _methexic_,
and participates of the divine reality itself. All heterodox
systems are shams, unphilosophical, sophistical, and incapable of
sustaining a rigid examination. Their abettors do not, and dare
not, reason on them. The age supposes Catholicity is no better,
is equally unsubstantial, unreal, dissolving and vanishing in
thin air at the first glance of reason. We have wished to show
the age its mistake, and to let it see that Catholicity can bear
the most thorough investigation, and that it has nothing to fear
from the most rigid dialectics. We do not pretend to divest it of
mysteries, or to explain the mysteries so as to bring them within
the comprehension of our feeble understandings, but to show that
the church, with all her attributes and functions, has a reason
in the divine mind and in the order of things of which we make a
part, and is a real, inward life, as well as an outward form.
From the view of the church which we have presented, it is easy
to deduce her attributes. She is in some sort, according to St.
Athanasius, the human nature of Christ, or Christ in his
humanity, and he is her divine personality, for his humanity is
inseparable from his divine person. That she is one, follows,
necessarily, from the unity of Christ's person, from the fact
that, in her soul, she is Christ and, in her body, is his body.
Her unity is the unity of Christ himself, and the unity of the
life she lives in him. There are individual distinctions and even
varieties of race or family among men in the natural order, but
all men are men only in that they are one in the unity of the
species. Jesus Christ is not only the individual man Christ
Jesus, but also in the order of regeneration the species, as Adam
was both an individual man and the entire species in the order of
genesis or generation. The church as growing out of the
incarnation, and, in some sense, continuing it, and in her body
composed of individuals born of him and affiliated to him, must
necessarily be one, one in her faith, one in her sacraments, one
in her worship, one in her love, one in the life that flows
through her, animates and invigorates her, from the one Christ,
who is her _forma_, or informing principle, as the soul is
the informing principle of the body--_anima est forma
corporis_, as the holy Council of Clermont defines. Diversity
in any of these respects breaks the unity of the body and
interrupts communion with the head, and the communion of the body
with the soul, whence is derived its life. It is therefore all
Christians have always held heresy and schism to be deadly sins,
and the most deadly of all. They not only sever those guilty of
them from the body or external communion of the church, but from
her internal communion, from Christ himself, the only source of
supernatural and divine life.
{797}
There is not only the grossest ingratitude and baseness in heresy
and schism, but there is spiritual death in them. By them we die
to Christ as, in the natural order, we should die to Adam, or
lose our natural life, if we were deprived of our humanity or cut
off from communion with its natural head. It is not from bigotry
or intolerance that the church regards heresy and schism with
horror; it is because they necessarily separate the soul from
Christ, and destroy its spiritual life; because they reject
Christ, and crucify him afresh. It is so in the very nature of
the case, and she can no more make it not so, than the
mathematician can make the three angles of a triangle _not_
equal to two right angles. It is not, therefore, without reason
that the church has always insisted that to keep the unity of the
faith is the first of Christian duties, or that St. Paul bids St.
Timothy to keep the deposit, and to hold fast the form of sound
words; for without the faith it is impossible to please God. We
know men may err without being heretics; we know that invincible
ignorance, an ignorance not culpable in its cause, excuses from
sin in that whereof one is invincibly ignorant; but there is no
invincible ignorance where one may know the truth, but will not;
and invincible ignorance itself cannot regenerate the soul, and
elevate it to the supernatural order, which can be done only by
faith given in baptism.
The church is holy, holy in her doctrines, her worship, her life,
and in her living members. This follows necessarily from the
fact, that in her soul she is Christ, and her body the body of
Christ. She is holy as he is holy, and because he is holy, as she
is one because he is one. Doubtless all individuals in her
communion are not holy; for men may, as we have seen, be
_in_ the church and not _of_ the church. Regeneration,
or the infused habits of faith, justice, and sanctity, do not
destroy one's individuality, or take away one's free-will; men
may, if they will, profane the sacraments, eat or drink
unworthily, even fall from grace, and become gross sinners
against God and criminals before the state. These are not holy,
but the reverse; yet all who are born again, and are united by a
living bond to the church, may derive, if they will, life from
Christ through her, and all who do so are holy in her holiness,
as she is holy in the holiness of Christ. His life, the life of
God in his humanity, is their life.
The attempt to disprove the sanctity of the church from the bad
conduct of some, if you will many, of her members, overlooks the
real character of the church, supposes her to be simply an
aggregation of individuals, living only the life she derives from
them; and it also starts from the false assumption that grace is
irresistible and inamissible. Poor Luther, in the morbid state
into which he fell in his convent, could find relief only in
assuming that, as he had once been in grace, he must be still in
grace, and sure of salvation; for grace, once had, can never be
lost, however one may sin after having received it. Yet this
doctrine was false, and but for his morbid, half insane state of
mind, he would never have entertained it for a moment.
Protestantism sprang from the diseased state of Luther's soul. A
sad origin.
The church is _visible_ as well as invisible. This also
follows necessarily. The internal life of the church is
invisible, hidden with God; but the body of the church is
visible, as was the body of Christ when on earth.
{798}
The church is composed, as we have seen, of body and soul, and
everybody living on earth in space and time, is by its own nature
visible, and would not be body if it were not. The body of the
church is composed of individuals united in the profession of the
same faith, and in the participation of the same sacraments,
under one head, and is therefore, since the individuals are
visible, a visible body. The whole analogy of the case supposes
her to be both invisible and visible, as are all the sacraments,
which are visible signs or media of invisible grace. The church
is the medium through which the soul is regenerated and comes
into communion with Christ, the head, and derives life from his
life; and how if not visible could we know where to find her, or
be able to approach her sacraments, and through them be born
again, and be united in the supernatural order to Christ, as in
the natural order we are united to Adam? No: the church is as a
city set on a hill, and cannot be hidden; and is set on a hill,
made visible, that all may behold her, and flock within her
walls.
The church is indefectible. This follows from the fact that
Christ himself whose body she is, is indefectible, and dies no
more, but ever liveth and reigneth. No matter whether you call
the rock on which he said he would build his church, and against
which the gates of hell shall not prevail, Peter, the truth that
Peter confessed, or Christ himself, her indefectibility is
equally asserted. He himself in every case, is the chief
corner-stone, is, in the last analysis, the rock; and the church
cannot fail, not because men may not fail, but because he who is
her support, her life, cannot fail, since he is God, and as truly
God in his human nature as in his divine nature. The heterodox of
all shades, however they may err as to what she is, hold, as we
have seen, that the church is, in some form, indefectible.
The church is authoritative. Her authority is the authority of
Christ; and his authority is the authority of God in his human
nature. "All power is given unto me," he said, "in heaven and in
earth," and therefore is he exalted to be "King of kings and Lord
of lords," so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.
The church is Christ in his humanity, and his authority is hers,
for it is in and through her that he exercises his authority. To
resist her, is to resist him, and to resist him is to resist God.
"He that despiseth you, despiseth me, and he that despiseth me,
despiseth him that sent me." This is no arbitrary authority, or
authority resting solely on an external commission or
appointment. It is internal and real in the church, as the body
of Christ, because he is in her, lives in her, and governs in and
through her. It is, then, no light thing to resist the authority
of the church; for to do so, is not to resist the authority of
fallible men, but the authority of God--is to resist the
authority of the Holy Ghost himself. The age feels it, and seeks
to justify itself in rejecting the church by denying the Divine
sovereignty, or that God has any rightful authority over the
creatures he has made. It demands liberty, and M. Proudhon, a man
of iron logic, maintained that to assert liberty in the sense
this age asserts it, we must dethrone God, and annihilate belief
in his existence. "Once admit the existence of God," he said,
"and you must admit the authority claimed by the church, the
papal despotism and all." We have met this denial of the Divine
sovereignty in the essay on _Rome and the World_, in the
current volume of the Magazine, and proved, we think
conclusively, that God is sovereign Lord and Proprietor of all
his works.
{799}
Very few people are willing to avow themselves atheists, however
atheistic may be their speculations; and most people have, after
all, a lurking belief that God is sovereign, and has plenary
authority over all the creatures he has made. Concede this, and
the authority of the Son is conceded; and if the authority of the
Son is conceded, that of the church cannot be denied or
questioned.
The church is infallible. This follows necessarily, if our Lord
himself is infallible, which it were impious to doubt. Our Lord
is God in his human nature indeed; but God in his human nature is
God no less than in his divine nature. In this is the mystery of
the incarnation--that God should humble himself, assume the form
of a servant, annihilate himself, as it were, become man, and be
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, and yet be God,
have all the fulness of the Godhead dwell in him bodily; this is
a mystery that only God himself can fathom. We know from
revelation the fact, and can understand its relation to our
redemption, justification, sanctification, and glorification; but
it remains a fact before which we do, and always must, stand in
awe and wonder. If Christ is God, God in his humanity and also in
his divinity, for he includes both natures in the unity of his
divine person. He has all the attributes of divinity, while he
has also all the attributes of humanity, what the fathers mean
when they say, "he is perfect God and perfect man." He knows all
things, and can do all things, and can neither deceive nor be
deceived. He is the divine personality of the church, who is not
the individual man, but the human nature hypostatically united to
himself, as we have seen from St. Athanasius. His life is her
life, and she must, therefore, be infallible as he is infallible.
He who is infallible as God is infallible lives in her, and she
lives, breathes, moves, and acts by him and in him. How then, can
she be not infallible? How could she err? She could no more err
as to the truth that lives and speaks in her than God himself,
for she is all in him, and in her soul indistinguishable from
him. She is not infallible by external appointment or commission
alone, but really so in herself, in her own life and
intelligence. We speak of the soul of the church, but as her soul
and body are not separated or separable, she must be equally
infallible in her body, or as the body of Christ, who is the life
and informing principle of the body. The body of the church, by
virtue of its union with Christ is, and must be, infallible. But
the body of the church is a society of individuals; and is it
meant that all individuals in the communion of the church are
infallible? There is in the church regenerated humanity which,
though it subsists not without individualization, is not
individual. This regenerated humanity is united to Christ, its
regenerator, and derives its life from him. In all the
individuals affiliated or assimilated to the body of the church,
there is both this regenerated humanity and their own
individuality. As regenerated humanity, no one can err, but in
their individuality all individuals do or may err more or less.
Reason is in all men, and reason within its sphere is infallible;
but all men are not infallible in their understanding of what is
reason, or what reason teaches. Individuals who are in the
communion of the church, so far as made one with her body and one
with the indwelling Christ, are infallible in his infallibility;
but in their individuality they are not infallible.
{800}
Hence, when it is said the church is infallible, the meaning is,
that she is infallible in the universal, not in the particular,
or in the sense in which she is one, not in the sense in which
she is many. Our faith as individual believers is infallible only
in believing with the church, what she in her unity and integrity
believes and teaches.
The church, we should have said before, is catholic. This follows
from her unity and completeness. _Catholic_ means the whole,
or universal; and since the church is one, and is the body of
Christ, who is "the way, the truth, and the life," she cannot but
be catholic. She is catholic, in the words of the catechism,
"because she subsists in all ages, teaches all nations, and
maintains all truth." She is catholic because in her soul she is
Christ himself; because in her body she is the body of Christ;
because she is the whole regenerated human race in their head,
the second Adam. Having Christ, who, in the order of
regeneration, is at once universal and individual, she has the
whole, has the universal life of Christ, has all truth, for he is
the truth itself and in itself, and is the only way of salvation;
for there is no other name given under heaven among men whereby
we can be saved--neither is there salvation in another. She
subsists in all ages, prior to the incarnation, as we have seen,
by prophecy and promise; since the incarnation, in fact and
reality; and has authority to teach all nations, and is set to
make all the kingdoms of this world the kingdom of God and his
Christ. Whatever is outside of her is outside of Christ, and is
necessarily non-catholic.
The church is apostolic. This means that she is endowed with
authority to teach and govern, not merely that she descends in
the direct line from the apostles, the chief agents in founding
and building her up, though, of course, that is implied in her
unity and catholicity in time no less than in space. It means
that she is clothed with apostolic authority; that is, authority
in doctrine and discipline. This authority is distinguishable
from the sacerdotal character conferred in the sacrament of
orders. Men may have valid orders, be real priests, and actually
consecrate in schism, or even heresy, as is the case with the
clergy of the schismatic Greek Church and some of the Oriental
sects. But these schismatic or heretical priests have no
apostolic authority, no authority to teach or govern in the
church, no authority in doctrine or discipline, and all their
sacerdotal acts are irregular and illicit. This authority, which
we have seen the church derives from the indwelling Christ, and
possesses as his body, we call the apostolate. It is inherent in
Christ himself, and is and can be exercised only in his name by
his vicar, the supreme pontiff, and the pastors of the church
under him and in communion with him. All the arguments that prove
the visibility of the church prove equally the visibility of the
apostolate, or, as Saint Cyprian calls it, the episcopate; all
the arguments that prove the unity of the church prove the unity
of the apostolate or episcopate; and, therefore, with those which
prove the visibility of the church, prove a visible centre of
authority, in which the episcopate takes its rise, or from which
the whole teaching and governing authority under Christ radiates
and pervades the whole body. The visible church being one,
demands a visible head; for if she had no visible head, she would
lack visible unity; and would be, as to her teaching and
governing authority, not visible, but invisible. Hence Saint
Cyprian, after asserting the episcopate or apostolate, held by
all the bishops _in solido_, says, that the unity might be
made manifest, or the apostolate be seen to take its rise from
one, our Lord established one cathedra and gave the primacy to
Peter.
{801}
Saint Cyprian evidently assumes the necessity of a visible centre
of authority, so that we may as individual members of the church,
or as persons outside the church seeking to ascertain and enter
her communion, know what is her authority and where to find it.
Hence in the definition of the church we began by saying she is
defined to be "the society of the faithful, baptized in the
profession of the same faith, and united _inter se_ in the
participation of the same sacraments, and in the true worship of
God, under Christ the head in heaven, and under his vicar, the
supreme pontiff on earth." The papacy is the visible origin and
centre of the apostolate, as Christ is himself its invisible
origin and centre, and is as essential to the being of the
visible church as are any of the attributes we have seen to be
hers. To make war on the supreme pontiff is to make war on the
church, and to make war on the church is to make war on Christ,
and to make war on Christ is to make war on God and man.
It is no part of our present purpose to discuss the constitution
of the hierarchy or external organization of the church, which,
to a certain extent, is and must be a matter of positive law, and
which, though having its reason in the very nature and design of
the church as founded by the incarnation, lies too deep in that
mystery of mysteries for us to be able to ascertain it by way of
logical deduction. The idea of one living God includes the three
persons in the Godhead; the idea of the incarnation includes the
church; and the idea of the church includes unity, sanctity,
catholicity, visibility, indefectibility, infallibility,
apostolicity; and the idea of apostolicity includes authority in
its unity and visibility; and, therefore, the papacy is the
visible origin and centre of the authority of the church as the
visible body of Christ. So far we can go by reasoning from the
ideas, principles, or data supplied by revelation. The rest
depends on authority, and is not ascertainable by theological
reason.
We know from the New Testament that our Lord has set in his
church some to be apostles, some to be pastors, etc.; but these
are all included in the supreme pontiff, who possesses the
priesthood, the episcopate, the apostolate, the pastorate, in
their plenitude; and all, except what is conferred in the
sacrament of orders, is derived directly or indirectly from him,
as its origin and source under Christ, whose vicar he is. This is
enough for our present purpose, and it is worthy of remark that
always has the papacy been the chief point of attack by the
enemies of the church; for they have had the sagacity to perceive
that it is the keystone of the arch, and that if it can be
displaced, the whole edifice will fall of itself. It is the pope
that heresy and schism today war against, and the whole
non-catholic world seek to deprive him of the last remains of his
temporal authority, because they foolishly imagine that the
destruction of the prince will involve the annihilation of the
pontiff. It is the pontificate, and Garibaldi avows it, not the
principality, that they seek to get rid of. But they may despoil
the prince; they cannot touch the pontificate. He who is King of
kings and Lord of lords has pledged his omnipotence to sustain
it. Our Lord has prayed for Peter that his faith fail not.
{802}
It were easy for us to cite the commission of our Lord to the
teaching church, and from that to argue her authority to govern
under him, and her infallibility in teaching; but we have had
another purpose in view. We have wished, by setting forth the
relation of the church to the incarnation, and deducing from that
relation her essential attributes, to show how the church can be
holy and yet individual Catholics can be unholy, and how
individuals, all individuals in their individuality, can be
fallible and err, and yet she be infallible. The heterodox argue
against the church from the misconduct of individual Catholics.
They ransack history and collect a long list of misdeeds, crimes,
and sins, of which Catholics have been guilty, and then ask, How
can a church who has done such things be holy or be the church of
God? In the first place, we answer, none of the things alleged
have been committed by the church, but, if committed at all, it
has been by individuals in the church; and in the second place,
even rebirth in baptism does not, as we have seen, destroy the
personality of the individual, or take away his free-will. He can
sin after grace as well as before, and glorification is promised
only to those who persevere to the end. The church is holy by her
union with Christ, as his body; individuals are so by their
assimilation to her, and by living through her the life of
Christ.
It is asked again how, if the church is infallible, can
individuals be fallible; and if individuals are fallible, and do
not unfrequently err, how can the church be infallible? How from
any possible number of fallibles get an infallible? The answer is
in principle the same. The church is infallible, for he who
assumed human nature, and whose body she is, is her personality,
for she is individualized in the individual human nature he
assumed; but the individual is not in himself infallible, for he
retains his own personality with all its limitations and
imperfections. The infallibility is in Christ, and proceeds from
him to the regenerated race, not to the individual member in his
individuality. Our Lord assumed human nature without its human
personality, though human nature individualized; but individuals
assimilated to Christ through the church retain their proper
human personality, and are infallible only in the church, only so
far as they think and speak her thoughts, and believe what she
believes and teaches. The pope himself is not personally
infallible, but at most only when speaking _ex cathedra_, in
union with the mind of the church, and declaring her faith. Hence
some theologians maintain that the papal definitions themselves
are reformable till expressly or tacitly accepted by the
universal church, though we do not agree with them; for we regard
the pope as the vicar of Christ in teaching as well as in
governing, and, therefore, as expressing, when speaking
officially, the infallible faith of the universal church. For us,
in the language of St. Ambrose, _ubi Petrus, ibi ecclesia_.
Whenever the church speaks, she speaks the words of her Lord, and
is infallible and authoritative; whenever the individual speaks
in his own individuality, he is fallible, and his words, as his,
have no authority. The church can then be infallible and
individuals fallible. Consequently, any arguments drawn from the
errors and misdeeds of individuals have no weight against the
church.
{803}
If non-Catholics would pay attention to this, they would write
fewer books, publish fewer essays, and preach fewer sermons,
against the church, for they have hitherto alleged little or
nothing against her but the errors and bad conduct of churchmen.
When they wish for examples of the purest and most heroic
sanctity, they are obliged to seek them in her communion, and the
most anti-Catholic among them feel that they may assert without
proof any doctrine they happen to like, if the church has taught
and teaches it. It is remarkable with what confidence and mental
relish they assert particular doctrines for which they feel that
they have her authority. Is it because a secret conviction of her
infallibility lurks in the minds of all who are Catholic by their
reminiscences? and would they not be far less enraged against
what they call "the seductions of Rome," if it were not so, if
they did not feel themselves constantly tempted to return to her
communion? They resist her influence, in fact, only by a constant
effort, by main strength.
But it is time to bring our remarks to a close. We have opened a
vast subject, one to which we could do scant justice in a
magazine article, even if we were otherwise able, as we are not,
to treat it not altogether unworthily. No mortal can speak
worthily of the church of Christ, in which the power, the wisdom,
the justice, the love, and the mercy of God, of the indivisible
and ever Blessed Trinity, in all their infinitude are, so to
speak, embodied and displayed. Even God himself cannot do more or
better than he has done in the church, for he gives in her
himself, and more than himself even he cannot give. How great,
how glorious, how awful is the church! How great, how exceeding
great, the loving-kindness of God, who permits us to call her our
mother, to draw life from her breasts, and to rest on her bosom!
We love the church, who is to us the sum of all things good and
holy, and we grieve daily over those who know her not; we grieve
when her own children seem to treat her with levity or
indifference; we are pained to the heart when we hear men, who
have souls to save, for whom Christ died, and whom she longs to
clasp to her loving bosom, railing against her, calling her "the
mystery of iniquity," and her chief pontiff "the man of sin." We
seem to see our Lord crucified afresh on Calvary, and to hear her
sweet voice pleading, "Father, forgive them, for they know not
what they do."
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{804}
Magas; or, Long Ago.
A Tale Of The Early Times.