FOOTNOTES:

Where then are we to find the cause which induced so many learned and able Protestants first to imagine this distinction between the necessity of internal and external communion and unity, and then to deceive themselves and others with such a mockery? The real cause was, as I believe, that having denied the institution of the Primacy, and the authority lodged in it for the purpose of forming and maintaining unity, they were without a criterion or proof, in virtue of which, among so many Christian societies divided from and condemning each other, they could safely choose the one with which they were to be joined in communion, and the outward unity of duty and obedience. For they would readily conclude that the unity so often commended in Scripture, and so earnestly enjoined, could not be external, since God, who does not command impossibilities, had instituted no visible sign to mark that company of Christians, which alone among all the rest was the continuation and development of the Church founded by Christ, and built up by the Apostles.

C. From the same source must the third Protestant doctrine on unity be derived.[82]Jurien filled up the sketch of this, which[83]Casaubon,[84]Claude, and[85]Mestrezat had drawn, and it became so popular as not onlyto infect a large number of Protestants, but to exert a withering influence on certain unstable members of the Catholic body. It teaches that we must believe not only in an internal and spiritual, but in a visible and external unity, for the Scriptures plainly urge its necessity, and Christian tradition fully describes it, so that there is not a truth more patent or established on greater authority; but this unity is restricted within narrow bounds, and confined to the articles called fundamental, though as to how many these are no one defender of the system is agreed with another. For it is sufficient for Christians not to differ in the profession of such articles for them to be deemed members of one and the same Church. Whence they infer that one and the same true Church is made up out of almost all Christian societies, the Roman, the Greek, the Nestorian, the Eutychian, the Waldensian, the Lutheran, the Anglican, and the Calvinist, for their differences, important as they are, offer no hindrance to the unity which Christ enjoined, the Apostles preached, the creeds express, and universal tradition demands.

As Bossuet,[86]the brothers Walemburg,[87]Nicole,[88]and even some Protestants have most fully dealt with this portentous opinion, there is no need to urge much against it here. I prefer repeating the question, whatoccasionthe Protestants had to get up so unheard-of a paradox, and a system so absurd? It was twofold: one theoretical, and the other practical.

The theoretical was this. The crime of heresy, depicted in Scripture, and Christian antiquity, with colours so dark,had gradually lost its foulness and its magnitude in the minds of Protestants, who had, at length, come to the pass of reckoning religious, as well as civil, liberty, among the unquestionable rights of man. As if, all other human acts being subject to a law, those alone which proceed from the intellect are exempt: as if the difference between right and wrong, which embraces the whole range of man's life, did not relate to its noblest part, in the acts of the intellect and the reason: as if God had laid down a law of justice, charity, fortitude, and prudence, but entirely omitted alaw[89]of faith: as if the will submitted to a law ofgood, but the mind owned no law oftruth: or as if God cared for the boughs and leaves, but took no thought of the root.[90]But what could Protestants do? Having allowed to all full license of thought, and overthrown the authority which ruled the mind, they were forced, while they kept thenameof heresy, to give up thethingmeant by it, and the effects springing from that thing: they were forced to attenuate to the utmost the crime of heresy, and to reduce to the smallest possible number the articles necessary to be believed by all; they were forced to extend beyond all measure the Church's limits, while they contracted beyond all measure the range of necessary unity.

Besides the theoretical, there was a practical occasion in those schisms which, not merely in later or in mediæval times, but in the first ages also, rent the Christian society. Jurien and Pfaff appeal to these, pretentiously enumeratingthose which arose under Popes Victor, Cornelius, Stephen, Urban VI., and Clement VII., and those named from Donatus, Meletius, and Acacius. Then they ask if the true Church of Christ can be thought to consist in one single society perfectly at union with itself. They allege many conjectures against this, but dwell on the argument, thatin defect of a visible external test, such an assertion could not be maintained withoutimposing upon all a most intolerable burden of searching out where is the true doctrine and the legitimate ministerial succession: for it is not until those are found, that, at length, that one single society will be recognised, with which, as the only true Church, unity of Communion is to be kept.

Now, I profess that I do not see how this argument can be met, if the institution of the Primacy, and its proper function to form and maintain unity, be rejected. For, without this, by what visible token among so many Christian societies, divided by intestine dissension, and condemning each other, can you distinguish the one which has the character of the true Church, and the right to exact communion with itself? There is none to be found; and so, either all hope of finding the true Church must be relinquished, or an enquiry must be undertaken into purity of doctrine, and legitimate ministerial succession, on the termination of which the only true Church will at last be found. But as this latter course is to by far the greater number of men impossible, dangerous[91]to all without exception, and most foreign to the Christiantemper, the only conclusion remaining, is, that the selection of a Primacy with the power of effecting unity impressed upon it,is most intimately involved and bound up in the visibility and unity of the true Church.

And quite as closely is it bound up with that other test of the Church, its Catholicism. We are not to believe Voss and King,[92]in their assertion that this test began to be applied first in the fourth century, for the purpose of distinguishing the genuine company of the orthodox, and the true body of Christ, from heretics and schismatics. For we find the Church distinguished by the epithet of Catholic, not merely in the records of the fourth[93]and fifth[94]century, but in those of the third,[95]and the second,[96]at the beginning of which S. Ignatius wrote, "Follow all of you the bishop, as Jesus Christ the Father; and the body of presbyters, as Apostles. But reverence deacons, as the command of Christ. Without the bishop let nothing of what concerns the Church be done by any one. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist which is under the bishop, or with his sanction. Where the bishop is, there also let the multitude be; as, where Christ Jesus is,there is the Catholic Church."[97]As, therefore, that cannot be the Church of Christ, which is not Catholic, we ought to investigate the meaning which is given to this word by the consent of all orthodox believers.

Now, two points are signified in it, one of which is itsmaterial, the other itsformal, oressential, part. Itsmaterialpart is, that the geographical extension of the true Church be such that its mass bemorally[98]universal,absolutelygreat, and eminently visible, butcomparativelywith all heretical and schismatical sects, larger and more numerous. Of thismaterialmeaning attached to the epithet, Catholic, we find abundant witnesses in all[99]the orthodox writers who defended the cause of the Church against the Donatists, and again, against the Luciferians,[100]and Novatians; and likewise, in those who have explained the creeds,[101]and, as occasion offered, have touched on the force of the term Catholic.[102]But the same first cited witnesses tell us that universal diffusion is not sufficient, and that we require another element to infuse a soul into this universally extended body, and to bring it to unity.

For two properties are continually recurring in Christian records, one of which may be callednegative, the otheraffirmative. The force of the former is toexpel from the circle of the one true Catholic Church all sects of heretics and Schismatics: of the latter, that this Churchconsist in one single communion and society, whose members cohere together by hierarchical subordination.

But is it true that both these points are so plainly and constantly inculcated? To remove all doubt we will quote the authors who most distinctly assert the one and the other. As to the first, there are[103]Clement of Alexandria,[104]Tertullian,[105]Alexander of Alexandria,[106]Celestine,[107]Leander, the Emperor Justinian;[108]then again the Councils of Nice,[109]Sardica,[110]and the third of[111]Carthage; nay, the heretics[112]themselves; and all these agree in asserting thatthere is one only ancient Catholic Church, outside of which the divine patience endures and bears with heresies, which are as thorns. Thus in language ecclesiastical and Christian nothing can be considered as more certainly proved than that the epithet of Catholic isdistinctive, and shows the communion which rejects from its bosom all heresies and all schisms. It was with great reason, therefore, that[113]Pacian wrote what[114]Cyril of Jerusalem, and[115]Augustine very frequently repeated, "Our people is divided from the heretical name by this appellation, that it is called Catholic."

Moreover this unity, which we have said may be callednegative, is necessary indeed to the understanding of the Church as Catholic, but is by no means sufficient to complete the idea of Catholicity. To it therefore must be added theaffirmativeunity, by which Catholicism is not only divided from heretics and schismatics, but becomes in itself a coherent body with members and articulations. It is to the assertion and maintenance of this unity, which is the soul of Catholicity, and without which it cannot even be conceived, that has reference what we so often read inthe monuments of antiquity about the[116]necessity of communion among the members of the Church and the[117]tokens and means of that communion. There are very distinct and innumerable testimonies about it in the ancient Fathers,[118]declaring itsnecessity, and setting forth itsmodeof composition and coherence.

For to set forth themodeof this is the plain drift of what[119]Irenæus writes in confutation of heretics by the tradition of the Apostolical churches: "For since it would be very long in the compass of our present work to enumerate the successions of all the Churches, taking that Church which is the greatest, the most ancient, and well known to all, founded and established at Rome by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul, by indicating that tradition which it has from the Apostles, and the faith which it announces to men, which has reached even to us by the succession of bishops, we confound all those, who, in whatsoever manner, either through self-pleasing, or vain glory, or blindness and evil intention,[120]gather otherwise than they ought.Forto this church on account of its superior chiefship, it is necessary that every Church should come[121]together, that is, the faithful who are everywhere; for in this Church the tradition which is from the Apostleshas been ever preserved by those who are everywhere. ...By this ordination and succession, the tradition and preaching of the truth, which is from the Apostles in the Church, has reached down to us. And this proof is most complete, that it is one and the same vivifying faith, which has been preserved, and handed down in truth, in the Church from the Apostles to the present day."

The churches, therefore, which are everywhere diffused, derive that strength and harmony of parts, out of which the whole body of the Catholic Church is made up, from the fact of their agreeing in the unity of faith and preaching with that Church of Peter, which is the greatest, the chief, and the more powerful. It follows that the Primacy of Peter, and the authority inherent in it to effect unity, is that principle which Christ selected, that the Church which He had set up might be Catholic, and bear the note of Catholicity on its brow.

And Cyprian would set forth the samemodeof communion, when he speaks of thecoherence of bishops, by which both theCatholic episcopateis madeone, and the Church one and Catholic. For as theseveral communities draw the unity of the body from the unity of the prelatesto whom they are subject; so all prelates, and the communities subject to them, constituteone Catholic episcopate and one Catholic Church, because they cohere with theprincipalchurch,the root and matrix, which is the Church of Peter,upon whomthe Lord founded the whole building, and whom He institutedto be the fountain and source of Catholic unity.[122]

These words are a clue to understand[123]Tertullian's meaning, when, already become a Montanist, he called the Catholic Church, whose discipline he was attacking,the Church near to Peter—"Concerning your opinion, I now enquire whence you claim this right to the Church. If because the Lord said to Peter, 'Upon this rock I will build My Church,' 'to thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven,' or 'whatsoever thou shalt bind or loose on earth, shall be bound or loosed in heaven,' you, therefore, pretend that the power of binding and loosing is derived to you, that is, to all the Church near to Peter; how do you overthrow and change the manifest intention of the Lord in conferring this on Peter[124]personally, 'Upon thee I will build My Church,' and 'I will give to thee the keys,' not to the Church, and 'whatsoever thou bindest or loosest,' not what they bind or loose." Now he used this mode of speaking because it was customary with Catholics, who were wont to exhibitnearness with Peteras the characteristic of the Church, and the necessary condition for sharing that power, whose plenitude and native source Christ had lodged in Peter.

This certain and undoubting judgment of Catholics, Tertullian himself, before his error, had clearly expressed in his book, De Scorpiace, c. x., where he says, "For if you yet think the heaven shut, remember that the Lord here (Matt. xvi. 19) left its keys to Peter, andthrough him to the Church." Nearness, then, with Peter, and[125]consanguinity of doctrinethence proceeding, are no less necessary to the Church, that it may be the Catholic Church which Christ founded and built upon Peter, than that it be partaker in those gifts which, again, He Himself granted only to unity, as it is effected in Peter and by Peter.

Now not only the most ancient Fathers, as Irenæus, Tertullian, and Cyprian, but the whole body of them, assign the origin of this to Peter. This they make the vivifying principle of agreement, society and unity, without which the Church can neither be intrinsically Catholic, nor the mind conceive it as such. It is so stated by[126]Pacian,[127]Ambrose, the[128]Fathers of Aquileia,[129]Optatus,[130]Gregory Nazianzen,[131]Jerome,[132]Augustine,[133]Gelasius,[134]Hormisdas,[135]Agatho,[136]Maximus Martyr, and, to shorten the list, by Leo[137]the Great. It is in setting forth the unity of the Catholic episcopate that he writes what ought never to be forgotten by Christian minds: "For the compactness of our unity cannot remain firm, unless the bond of charity weld us into an inseparable whole, because, as we have many members in onebody, and all members have not the same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. For it is the connection of the whole body which makes one soundness and one beauty; and this connexion, as it requires unanimity in the whole body, so especially demands concord among bishops. For though these have a like dignity, yet have they not an equal jurisdiction; since even among the most blessed Apostles, as there was a likeness of honour, so was there a certain distinction of power, and the election of all being equal, pre-eminence over the rest was given to one, from which mould, or type, the distinction also between bishops has arisen, and it was provided by a great ordering, that all should not claim to themselves all things, but that in every province there should be one whose sentence should be considered the first among his brethren; and others again, seated in the greater cities, should undertake a larger care, through whom the direction of the universal Church should converge to the one See of Peter, and nothing anywhere disagree from its head."

And, if I do not deceive myself, the direct drift of all this is to answer the question, whether the doctrine of Peter's Primacy, and its virtue, as the constituent of unity and Catholicity, is contained in the most solemn standard of faith, the creed. For although there are unimpeachable testimonies to prove that the creeds were not published and explained to Catechumens, in order to convey to them a full and complete Christian instruction; and though it be proved further to have been the purpose of the Church's ancient teachers to omit many points in the creeds which were to be set before the initiated at a more suitable season afterwards, it maynevertheless be said that the most commonly received articles of the creed may be regarded as so many most fruitful germs, from which the remaining doctrines would spontaneously spring. And so, to keep within our present point, what is more plain than that the sum of doctrine concerning Peter's Primacy, contained in the Bible, illustrated by the Fathers, and defined by Councils, is involved in that article of the creed in which we profess that the Church is one and Catholic? No doubt there nowhere occurs in the creeds,expressed in so many words, mention of Peter, or of the Primacy bestowed on him, or of hierarchical subordination; yet it is most distinctly stated that the Church is one and Catholic. What meaning, then, were the faithful to give to those epithets? What were they to intend in the words, I believe one Catholic Church? What but the meaning of the words themselves, which they received from the Church's teachers together with the creeds? But they could not form the conception of one Church and that Catholic, without thinking likewise of one Catholicprincipleof the Church; nor could they assign the dignity of that one Catholic principle to any other but Peter, whom alone they had invariably been taught to have been set over all. For what S.[138]Bernard wrote in mediæval times, "For this purpose the solicitude of all Churches rests on that one Apostolic See, that all may be united under it and in it, and it may be careful in behalf of all to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace," must be considered nothing but a repetition of the faith which resounded through the whole world, from the very beginning of the Christian religion.

Unless, therefore, any can be found who prefer assertingeitherthat true believersneverunderstood what they believed, in professing the Church to be one and Catholic,orthat they understood thisotherwisethan it had been universally and constantly explained by the Church's teachers; it must be admitted, that faith in Peter's Primacy, and in the power bestowed upon it for the purpose of making the visible kingdom of Christ one and Catholic, is coeval with that profession of the creeds which sets forth the Church as one and as Catholic.[139]

FOOTNOTES:[1][Greek: hêgoumenos], Luke xxii. 26, the very term still given in the East to the head of a religious community; and also, as has been said, that which marks our Lord in the great prophecy of Micah, recorded in Matt. ii. 6.[2][Greek: Prôtos, meizôn, hêgoumenos]. See ch. 2.[3]1 Cor. x. 18; Gal. vi. 16.[4]Matt. xix. 28; Luke xxii. 29.[5]See Num. ii. 3-9; x. 14; Judges i. 1-3; xx. 18.[6]Gen. xlix. 10; and see John iv. 22.[7]3 Kings, xii.[8]S. Ambrose, Ep. 11.[9]Arnobius Junior in Ps. 138.[10]Eucherius of Lyons, hom. in vig. S. Petri.[11]Proclus, patriarch of Constantinople, on the Transfiguration.[12]The Archimandrites of Syria to Pope Hormisdas, Mansi 8, 428.[13]S. Bernard, de Cons. Lib. 2, c. 8.[14]S. Theodore Studites to Pope Leo III., Lib. 1, Ep. 33.[15]In 1 Cor. Hom. 1, n. 1.[16]S. Greg. Naz., Orat. 12, alluding to John xix. 23.[17]S. Cyprian, Ep. 79.[18]S. Jerome, Ep. 57.[19]Matt. xvi. 18.[20]Luke xxii. 31-2.[21]John xxi. 15.[22]Luke xxii. 26.[23]Unity, John x. 16; xvii. 20-23; 1 Cor. xii. 12-31; Ephes. ii. 14-22; iv. 5; 1 Cor. i. 10.[24]Catholicity. Luke xxiv. 47; Mark xvi. 20; Acts i. 8; ix. 15; Rom. x. 18; Colos. i. 8-23.[25]For all the fathers hold the doctrine thus expressed by St. Hilary of Poitiers on Ps. 121, n. 5. "The Church is one body, not mixed up by a confusion of bodies, nor by each of these being united in an indiscriminate heap and shapeless bundle; but we are all one by the unity of faith, by the society of charity, by concord of works and will, by the one gift of the sacrament in all." No notion of the Church's unity in England, it may be remarked, outside of Catholicism, goes beyond "the indiscriminate heap and shapeless bundle."[26]Tit. ii. 11.[27]Rom. i. 25.[28]Tit. ii. 14, with 1 Pet. ii. 25.[29]John xvii. 17.[30]Eph. iv. 4.[31]John xvii. 21.[32]Gal. v. 20, 19.[33]1 Cor. xiv. 33.[34]Eph. v. 27.[35]Matt. xvi. 18.[36]1 Tim. iii. 15.[37]Matt. xviii. 17.[38]Luke xxii. 26.[39]Luke xxii. 31-2.[40]John xxi. 15.[41]Acts i. 4-8.[42]John xv. 26.[43]Matt. xxviii. 20.[44]Matt. xviii. 18.[45]The first Reformers fell into this grievous error because they had no other way to defend their schism. They may be passed over at present, as in most even of the Protestant confessions visibility is reckoned among the notes of the Church.[46]1 Cor. vi. 4; x. 32; xi. 22; xii. 28; Ephes. i. 22; iii. 10-21; v. 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 32; Colos. i. 18-24; 1 Tim. iii. 15.[47]Irenæus, Lib. 1, c. 3, Lib. 3, c. 4.[48]Tertullian, de Præsc. c. 4.[49]Clement. Stromat. Lib. 7, 17.[50]Origen in Cantic, Hom. 3.[51]Hilary, De Trin. Lib. 7, c. 12.[52]Jerome, adv. Lucifer.[53]Concil. Laodic. Can. 9, 10.[54]Concil. Carthag. 4, Can. 71.[55]Concil. Constant. 2, act 3.[56]De Præsc. c. 20.[57]See in the sixth act of the second Nicene Council the quotations from the iconoclast synod of Constantinople.[58]Adv. hæreæs, Lib. 1, c. 3.[59]Even the Puritan Cartwright observed, "if it be necessary to the unity of the Church that an archbishop should preside over other bishops, why not on the same principle should one archbishop preside over the whole Church of God?" Defence of Whitgift.[60]Sacred observations, Lib. 5, c. 7, on the hypothetical external communion of Christians.[61]See also the testimony of Mosheim, quoted above p. 197, note.[62]Thus the universal belief of the Fathers from the beginning is charged withaudacity. It is difficult not to be struck with the utter antagonism of feeling which separates Protestants from the whole body of the Fathers. The statements here ascribed, and truly, by Vitringa to them, would be viewed in modern English society, as the very insanity of bigotry.[63]Because to rend Christ's mystical body, and to subvert that unity for which He had prayed the Father, was regarded by them as a crime of the deepest dye. In modern England it would be consecrated by the glorious principle of "civil and religious liberty."[64]The unrestricted expression, "to preside over the Church," used by Cyprian of Novatian, who claimed to be Peter's successor, contains a clear indication that the fold entrusted to Peter was as wide as the Church itself. It is the same Church in the two clauses, but in the former itmustbe understood universally.[65]Ep. 69.[66]Ephes. v. 23-25.[67]Ephes. iv. 15-17.[68]John xiv. 16-26; xv. 26; xvi. 7.[69]2 Cor. iv. 17.[70]Matt. v. 14.[71]Compare Luke xii. 8, 9, with Matt. x. 32; Mark viii. 38; Rom. x. 10; and again, Mark xvi. 15, with Matt. xxviii. 19; Acts ii. 41; viii. 36; xix. 5; 1 Cor. xii. 13; and Matt. xxvi. 28, with Luke xxii. 19; 1 Cor. x. 17; xi. 21; and Ephes. iv. 11, with Acts xx. 28; Tit. i. 5.[72]Compare Ephes. iv. 11-16, with 1 Cor. xii. 13-31; and Matt. xviii. 18, with John xx. 21; Acts xv. 41; xvi. 4; 2 Cor. x. 6; 1 Tim. v. 20; Tit. i. 13; ii. 15.[73]Jude 18; 2 Pet. iii. 2, 3.[74]Augustin. in Euchirid. c. 63.[75]Aug. In Tract de Symb. c. 11.[76]Aug. De Baptismo Cont. Donat. Lib. 3, c. 16.[77]Aug. Cont. Litt. Petiliani, Lib. 1, c. 21-2, Lib. 2, c. 13-23. Lib. 3, c. 52.[78]Optat. Lib. 1.[79]Ambros. de Obitu Satyri fratris, Lib. 1, n. 47.[80]Idem. de Pœnit. Lib. 2, 4.[81]Lactant. Div. Institut. Lib. 3, c. 30.[82]Le vrai Systême de l'Eglise.[83]Answer to Cardinal Perron.[84]Defense de la Reforme, p. 200.[85]Traité de l'Eglise, p. 286.[86]Bossuet, writings against Jurien.[87]The brothers Walemburg, Treatise on Necessary and Fundamental Articles.[88]Nicole, de l'Unité de l'Eglise.[89]See the recognition of this law, Mark xvi. 16; Matt xxviii. 18-20; Luke xii. 8, 9; Rom. x. 10.[90]Such the Fathers call Faith, terming it, "the beginning and foundation," "the greatest mother of virtues," "the principle of salvation," "the prelude of immortality," "the clear eye of Divine knowledge," "the foundation of all wisdom." See Suicer, art. [Greek: pistis][91]After having gone through this search for ten long years, it may be allowed to express how great its danger, and how great too the blessedness of those who are not exposed to it. It is worth the experience of half a life to receive the truth, without personal enquiry, from a competent authority. Protestantism begins its existence by casting away one of the greatest blessings which man can have.[92]De Symbolo, Diss. 1, 39, and Hist. Symb. Apostol. cap. 6. 16.[93]Pacian, Ep. 1, n. 4. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. 18, n. 23. Eusebius on Isai. xxxii. 18. Chrysostome on Colos. hom. 1, n. 2, on 1 Cor. hom. 32, n. 1, Jerome on Matt. xxiv. 26.[94]Augustine on Ps. 41, n. 7; Epist. 49, n. 3-52, n. 1, and elsewhere.[95]Council of Antioch, quoted by Euseb. Hist. Lib. 7, c. 30. Origen on Romans, Lib. 8, n. 1; Cyprian, Epist. 52; Acts of S. Fructuosus, n. 3, and of S. Pionius. n. 9.[96]Irenæus, Lib. 3, c. 17, and Epistle on martyrdom of S. Polycarp, n. 19.[97]Epis. to Smyrneans, n. 8.[98]Augustine, Ep. 52. n. 1, Serm. 238, n. 3.[99]As Optatus, Lib. 2, Aug. de Unitate Ecc. c. 2. &c.; cont. Cresconium, L. 2, c. 63, Contr. Petilian. L. 2, c. 12-55-58-73; on Ps. 21, 47, 147, and on 1 Ep. John, Tract, 1, 2.[100]Pacian, Ep. 3, Jerome cont. Luciferianos.[101]Cyril of Jerusalem, Cat. 18.[102]Irenæus, Lib. 1, c. 10; Lib. 4, c. 19, Tertullian adv. Judæos, c. 7, Bernard in Cantica, serm. 65.[103]Clement, Stromat. L. 7, § 15-17.[104]Tertullian de præsc. c. 30.[105]Alexander, apud Theodoret. H. E. Lib. 1, c. 4.[106]Cœlestinus, homil. in laud. eccles.[107]Leander, Cont. Origenistas in Actis Synodi V.[108]Justinianus, epist. ad Mennam Constantinopolitanum.[109]Council of Nice, in the Creed, and Canon 8.[110]Sardica in letter to all bishops, quoted by Athanasius, Apol. 2.[111]22nd Canon of Codex Africanus.[112]The Nestorian profession of faith, in fifth act of Council of Ephesus.[113]Pacian, Ep. 1.[114]Cyril, Catech. 18.[115]Aug. de vera relig. c .6, de utilit. credendi, c. 7.[116]Pacian, Ep. 3, "The Church is a full and solid body, diffused already through the whole world. As a city, I say, whose parts are in unity. Not as you Novatians, an insolent particle, or a gathered wen, separated from the rest of the body."[117]Such as are [Greek: grammata koinônika], Euseb. H. E. lib. 7, c. 30. [Greek: epistolai koinônikai], Basil. Ep. 190, or [Greek: kanônikai], Ep. 224, letters of peace commendatory, ecclesiastical, &c.[118]See especially Chrys. Hom. 30 on 1 Cor.[119]Irenæus, Lib. 3, c. 3.[120]Compare Jerome's often-quoted passage, Ep. 15, to Pope Damasus, "Whoso gathereth not with thee, scattereth; that is, whoso is not of Christ is of antichrist."[121]For the meaning of "come together," see farther on, c. 40. "God hath placed in the Church Apostles, Prophets, Doctors, and all the rest of the operation of the Spirit, of which all those are not partakers who do notrun together to the Church, but defraud themselves of life by an evil intention and a very bad conduct. For where the Church is, there is the Spirit; and where is the Spirit of God, there is the Church and all grace."[122]See S. Cyprian's letters, 69, 55, 45, 70, 73. 40. Consider the force of the words, "Peter, upon whom the Church had been built by the Lord, speaking one for all, andanswering with the voice of the Church, says, Lord, to whom shall we go?" Ep. 55, on which Fenelon (de sum. Pontif. auct. c. 12) remarks, "What wonder, then, if Pope Hormisdas and other ancient fathers says, "the Roman, that is, the Catholic Church," since Peter was wont to answerwith the voice of the Church? What wonder if the body of the Church speaks by mouth of its head?"[123]De Pudicitia, c. 21.[124]This Montanist corruption (into which Ambrose on Ps. 38, n. 37, and Pacian in his three letters to Sempronian, state that the Novatians also fell,) induced some fathers, and especially Augustine, (Enarrat. on Ps. 108. n. 1, Tract 118 on John, n. 4, and last Tract n. 7) to teach that the keys were bestowed on Peter so far forth as he represented the person of the Church in right of his Primacy. By which mode of speaking they meant this one thing, that the power of the keys, as being necessary to the Church, and instituted for her good, began indeed in Peter, and was communicated to him in a peculiar manner but by no means dropt, or could possibly drop, with him.[125]Tertull. De Præsc. c. 32.[126]Pacian, ad Sempronium, Epis. 3, § 11.[127]Ambrose, de Pœnit. Lib. 1, c. 7, n. 33.[128]Synodical Epistle, among the letters of Ambrose.[129]Optatus, de Schism. Donat. Lib. 2, c. 2, and Lib. 7, c. 3.[130]Gregory, de vita sua, Tom. 2, p. 9.[131]Jerome, adv. Jovin. Lib. 1, n. 14.[132]Augustine, in Ps. Cont. partem Donati, cont. Epist. Fundam. c. 4, de utilitate credendi, c. 17, and Epist. 43.[133]Gelasius, Epis. 14.[134]Hormisdas, Mansi, Tom. 8, 451, in the conditions on which he readmitted the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Eastern bishops to communion.[135]Agatho, in a letter to the sixth council, read and accepted at its fourth sitting.[136]Maximus, Bibl. Patr. Tom. 11, p. 76.[137]Leo, Epist. 10, c. 1.[138]Ep. 358, to Pope Celestine.[139]The above chapter is translated from Passaglia, Pp. 298-336.

[1][Greek: hêgoumenos], Luke xxii. 26, the very term still given in the East to the head of a religious community; and also, as has been said, that which marks our Lord in the great prophecy of Micah, recorded in Matt. ii. 6.

[2][Greek: Prôtos, meizôn, hêgoumenos]. See ch. 2.

[3]1 Cor. x. 18; Gal. vi. 16.

[4]Matt. xix. 28; Luke xxii. 29.

[5]See Num. ii. 3-9; x. 14; Judges i. 1-3; xx. 18.

[6]Gen. xlix. 10; and see John iv. 22.

[7]3 Kings, xii.

[8]S. Ambrose, Ep. 11.

[9]Arnobius Junior in Ps. 138.

[10]Eucherius of Lyons, hom. in vig. S. Petri.

[11]Proclus, patriarch of Constantinople, on the Transfiguration.

[12]The Archimandrites of Syria to Pope Hormisdas, Mansi 8, 428.

[13]S. Bernard, de Cons. Lib. 2, c. 8.

[14]S. Theodore Studites to Pope Leo III., Lib. 1, Ep. 33.

[15]In 1 Cor. Hom. 1, n. 1.

[16]S. Greg. Naz., Orat. 12, alluding to John xix. 23.

[17]S. Cyprian, Ep. 79.

[18]S. Jerome, Ep. 57.

[19]Matt. xvi. 18.

[20]Luke xxii. 31-2.

[21]John xxi. 15.

[22]Luke xxii. 26.

[23]Unity, John x. 16; xvii. 20-23; 1 Cor. xii. 12-31; Ephes. ii. 14-22; iv. 5; 1 Cor. i. 10.

[24]Catholicity. Luke xxiv. 47; Mark xvi. 20; Acts i. 8; ix. 15; Rom. x. 18; Colos. i. 8-23.

[25]For all the fathers hold the doctrine thus expressed by St. Hilary of Poitiers on Ps. 121, n. 5. "The Church is one body, not mixed up by a confusion of bodies, nor by each of these being united in an indiscriminate heap and shapeless bundle; but we are all one by the unity of faith, by the society of charity, by concord of works and will, by the one gift of the sacrament in all." No notion of the Church's unity in England, it may be remarked, outside of Catholicism, goes beyond "the indiscriminate heap and shapeless bundle."

[26]Tit. ii. 11.

[27]Rom. i. 25.

[28]Tit. ii. 14, with 1 Pet. ii. 25.

[29]John xvii. 17.

[30]Eph. iv. 4.

[31]John xvii. 21.

[32]Gal. v. 20, 19.

[33]1 Cor. xiv. 33.

[34]Eph. v. 27.

[35]Matt. xvi. 18.

[36]1 Tim. iii. 15.

[37]Matt. xviii. 17.

[38]Luke xxii. 26.

[39]Luke xxii. 31-2.

[40]John xxi. 15.

[41]Acts i. 4-8.

[42]John xv. 26.

[43]Matt. xxviii. 20.

[44]Matt. xviii. 18.

[45]The first Reformers fell into this grievous error because they had no other way to defend their schism. They may be passed over at present, as in most even of the Protestant confessions visibility is reckoned among the notes of the Church.

[46]1 Cor. vi. 4; x. 32; xi. 22; xii. 28; Ephes. i. 22; iii. 10-21; v. 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 32; Colos. i. 18-24; 1 Tim. iii. 15.

[47]Irenæus, Lib. 1, c. 3, Lib. 3, c. 4.

[48]Tertullian, de Præsc. c. 4.

[49]Clement. Stromat. Lib. 7, 17.

[50]Origen in Cantic, Hom. 3.

[51]Hilary, De Trin. Lib. 7, c. 12.

[52]Jerome, adv. Lucifer.

[53]Concil. Laodic. Can. 9, 10.

[54]Concil. Carthag. 4, Can. 71.

[55]Concil. Constant. 2, act 3.

[56]De Præsc. c. 20.

[57]See in the sixth act of the second Nicene Council the quotations from the iconoclast synod of Constantinople.

[58]Adv. hæreæs, Lib. 1, c. 3.

[59]Even the Puritan Cartwright observed, "if it be necessary to the unity of the Church that an archbishop should preside over other bishops, why not on the same principle should one archbishop preside over the whole Church of God?" Defence of Whitgift.

[60]Sacred observations, Lib. 5, c. 7, on the hypothetical external communion of Christians.

[61]See also the testimony of Mosheim, quoted above p. 197, note.

[62]Thus the universal belief of the Fathers from the beginning is charged withaudacity. It is difficult not to be struck with the utter antagonism of feeling which separates Protestants from the whole body of the Fathers. The statements here ascribed, and truly, by Vitringa to them, would be viewed in modern English society, as the very insanity of bigotry.

[63]Because to rend Christ's mystical body, and to subvert that unity for which He had prayed the Father, was regarded by them as a crime of the deepest dye. In modern England it would be consecrated by the glorious principle of "civil and religious liberty."

[64]The unrestricted expression, "to preside over the Church," used by Cyprian of Novatian, who claimed to be Peter's successor, contains a clear indication that the fold entrusted to Peter was as wide as the Church itself. It is the same Church in the two clauses, but in the former itmustbe understood universally.

[65]Ep. 69.

[66]Ephes. v. 23-25.

[67]Ephes. iv. 15-17.

[68]John xiv. 16-26; xv. 26; xvi. 7.

[69]2 Cor. iv. 17.

[70]Matt. v. 14.

[71]Compare Luke xii. 8, 9, with Matt. x. 32; Mark viii. 38; Rom. x. 10; and again, Mark xvi. 15, with Matt. xxviii. 19; Acts ii. 41; viii. 36; xix. 5; 1 Cor. xii. 13; and Matt. xxvi. 28, with Luke xxii. 19; 1 Cor. x. 17; xi. 21; and Ephes. iv. 11, with Acts xx. 28; Tit. i. 5.

[72]Compare Ephes. iv. 11-16, with 1 Cor. xii. 13-31; and Matt. xviii. 18, with John xx. 21; Acts xv. 41; xvi. 4; 2 Cor. x. 6; 1 Tim. v. 20; Tit. i. 13; ii. 15.

[73]Jude 18; 2 Pet. iii. 2, 3.

[74]Augustin. in Euchirid. c. 63.

[75]Aug. In Tract de Symb. c. 11.

[76]Aug. De Baptismo Cont. Donat. Lib. 3, c. 16.

[77]Aug. Cont. Litt. Petiliani, Lib. 1, c. 21-2, Lib. 2, c. 13-23. Lib. 3, c. 52.

[78]Optat. Lib. 1.

[79]Ambros. de Obitu Satyri fratris, Lib. 1, n. 47.

[80]Idem. de Pœnit. Lib. 2, 4.

[81]Lactant. Div. Institut. Lib. 3, c. 30.

[82]Le vrai Systême de l'Eglise.

[83]Answer to Cardinal Perron.

[84]Defense de la Reforme, p. 200.

[85]Traité de l'Eglise, p. 286.

[86]Bossuet, writings against Jurien.

[87]The brothers Walemburg, Treatise on Necessary and Fundamental Articles.

[88]Nicole, de l'Unité de l'Eglise.

[89]See the recognition of this law, Mark xvi. 16; Matt xxviii. 18-20; Luke xii. 8, 9; Rom. x. 10.

[90]Such the Fathers call Faith, terming it, "the beginning and foundation," "the greatest mother of virtues," "the principle of salvation," "the prelude of immortality," "the clear eye of Divine knowledge," "the foundation of all wisdom." See Suicer, art. [Greek: pistis]

[91]After having gone through this search for ten long years, it may be allowed to express how great its danger, and how great too the blessedness of those who are not exposed to it. It is worth the experience of half a life to receive the truth, without personal enquiry, from a competent authority. Protestantism begins its existence by casting away one of the greatest blessings which man can have.

[92]De Symbolo, Diss. 1, 39, and Hist. Symb. Apostol. cap. 6. 16.

[93]Pacian, Ep. 1, n. 4. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. 18, n. 23. Eusebius on Isai. xxxii. 18. Chrysostome on Colos. hom. 1, n. 2, on 1 Cor. hom. 32, n. 1, Jerome on Matt. xxiv. 26.

[94]Augustine on Ps. 41, n. 7; Epist. 49, n. 3-52, n. 1, and elsewhere.

[95]Council of Antioch, quoted by Euseb. Hist. Lib. 7, c. 30. Origen on Romans, Lib. 8, n. 1; Cyprian, Epist. 52; Acts of S. Fructuosus, n. 3, and of S. Pionius. n. 9.

[96]Irenæus, Lib. 3, c. 17, and Epistle on martyrdom of S. Polycarp, n. 19.

[97]Epis. to Smyrneans, n. 8.

[98]Augustine, Ep. 52. n. 1, Serm. 238, n. 3.

[99]As Optatus, Lib. 2, Aug. de Unitate Ecc. c. 2. &c.; cont. Cresconium, L. 2, c. 63, Contr. Petilian. L. 2, c. 12-55-58-73; on Ps. 21, 47, 147, and on 1 Ep. John, Tract, 1, 2.

[100]Pacian, Ep. 3, Jerome cont. Luciferianos.

[101]Cyril of Jerusalem, Cat. 18.

[102]Irenæus, Lib. 1, c. 10; Lib. 4, c. 19, Tertullian adv. Judæos, c. 7, Bernard in Cantica, serm. 65.

[103]Clement, Stromat. L. 7, § 15-17.

[104]Tertullian de præsc. c. 30.

[105]Alexander, apud Theodoret. H. E. Lib. 1, c. 4.

[106]Cœlestinus, homil. in laud. eccles.

[107]Leander, Cont. Origenistas in Actis Synodi V.

[108]Justinianus, epist. ad Mennam Constantinopolitanum.

[109]Council of Nice, in the Creed, and Canon 8.

[110]Sardica in letter to all bishops, quoted by Athanasius, Apol. 2.

[111]22nd Canon of Codex Africanus.

[112]The Nestorian profession of faith, in fifth act of Council of Ephesus.

[113]Pacian, Ep. 1.

[114]Cyril, Catech. 18.

[115]Aug. de vera relig. c .6, de utilit. credendi, c. 7.

[116]Pacian, Ep. 3, "The Church is a full and solid body, diffused already through the whole world. As a city, I say, whose parts are in unity. Not as you Novatians, an insolent particle, or a gathered wen, separated from the rest of the body."

[117]Such as are [Greek: grammata koinônika], Euseb. H. E. lib. 7, c. 30. [Greek: epistolai koinônikai], Basil. Ep. 190, or [Greek: kanônikai], Ep. 224, letters of peace commendatory, ecclesiastical, &c.

[118]See especially Chrys. Hom. 30 on 1 Cor.

[119]Irenæus, Lib. 3, c. 3.

[120]Compare Jerome's often-quoted passage, Ep. 15, to Pope Damasus, "Whoso gathereth not with thee, scattereth; that is, whoso is not of Christ is of antichrist."

[121]For the meaning of "come together," see farther on, c. 40. "God hath placed in the Church Apostles, Prophets, Doctors, and all the rest of the operation of the Spirit, of which all those are not partakers who do notrun together to the Church, but defraud themselves of life by an evil intention and a very bad conduct. For where the Church is, there is the Spirit; and where is the Spirit of God, there is the Church and all grace."

[122]See S. Cyprian's letters, 69, 55, 45, 70, 73. 40. Consider the force of the words, "Peter, upon whom the Church had been built by the Lord, speaking one for all, andanswering with the voice of the Church, says, Lord, to whom shall we go?" Ep. 55, on which Fenelon (de sum. Pontif. auct. c. 12) remarks, "What wonder, then, if Pope Hormisdas and other ancient fathers says, "the Roman, that is, the Catholic Church," since Peter was wont to answerwith the voice of the Church? What wonder if the body of the Church speaks by mouth of its head?"

[123]De Pudicitia, c. 21.

[124]This Montanist corruption (into which Ambrose on Ps. 38, n. 37, and Pacian in his three letters to Sempronian, state that the Novatians also fell,) induced some fathers, and especially Augustine, (Enarrat. on Ps. 108. n. 1, Tract 118 on John, n. 4, and last Tract n. 7) to teach that the keys were bestowed on Peter so far forth as he represented the person of the Church in right of his Primacy. By which mode of speaking they meant this one thing, that the power of the keys, as being necessary to the Church, and instituted for her good, began indeed in Peter, and was communicated to him in a peculiar manner but by no means dropt, or could possibly drop, with him.

[125]Tertull. De Præsc. c. 32.

[126]Pacian, ad Sempronium, Epis. 3, § 11.

[127]Ambrose, de Pœnit. Lib. 1, c. 7, n. 33.

[128]Synodical Epistle, among the letters of Ambrose.

[129]Optatus, de Schism. Donat. Lib. 2, c. 2, and Lib. 7, c. 3.

[130]Gregory, de vita sua, Tom. 2, p. 9.

[131]Jerome, adv. Jovin. Lib. 1, n. 14.

[132]Augustine, in Ps. Cont. partem Donati, cont. Epist. Fundam. c. 4, de utilitate credendi, c. 17, and Epist. 43.

[133]Gelasius, Epis. 14.

[134]Hormisdas, Mansi, Tom. 8, 451, in the conditions on which he readmitted the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Eastern bishops to communion.

[135]Agatho, in a letter to the sixth council, read and accepted at its fourth sitting.

[136]Maximus, Bibl. Patr. Tom. 11, p. 76.

[137]Leo, Epist. 10, c. 1.

[138]Ep. 358, to Pope Celestine.

[139]The above chapter is translated from Passaglia, Pp. 298-336.

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