THE END OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY. PART II. "There are many other things which keep me in the bosom of the Catholic Church. The agreement of different people and nations keeps me there. The authority established by miracles, nourished by hope, increased by charity, and confirmed by antiquity, keeps me there. The succession of bishops in the see of St. Peter, the apostle, (to whom our Lord, after his resurrection, committed his sheep to be fed,) down to the present bishop, keeps me there. Finally, the very name of CATHOLIC, which, among so many heresies, this church alone possesses, keeps me there."-St. Augustin, Doctor of the Church, A. D. 400, contra Epist. Fundam. c. 4. ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TRUE CHURCH. DEAR SIR LETTER XIII.-TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ. &c. ON THE TRUE CHURCH. THE letters which I have received from you, and some others of your religious society, satisfy me that I have not altogether lost my labor in endeavoring to prove to you, that the private interpretation of Holy Scripture is not a more certain rule of faith than an imaginary private inspiration is; and, in short, that the Church of Christ is the only sure expounder of the doctrine of Christ. Thus much you, sir, in particular, candidly acknowledge but you ask me, on the part of some of your friends, as well as yourself, why, in case you "must rely on authority,' as Bishop Porteus confesses "the unlearned must," that is to say, the great bulk of mankind-why, I say, you should not, as he advises you, "rely on the authority of that church, which God's providence hath placed you under, rather than on that of another which you have nothing to do with,"* and why you may not trust to the Church of England, in particular, to guide * Confutation of Errors of Popery, p. 20. you in your road to heaven, with equal security as to the Church of Rome ?-Before I answer you, permit me to congratulate with you on your advance towards the clear sight of the whole truth of revelation. As long as you profess to hunt out the several articles of divine revelation, one by one, through the several books of Scripture, and under all the difficulties and uncertainties which, as I have clearly shown, attend this study, your task was interminable, and your success hopeless; whereas now, by taking the church of God for your guide, you have but one simple inquiry to make, "Which is this church?" A question that admits of being solved by "men of good will," with equal certainty and facility. I say, there is but one inquiry to be made, namely, "Which is the true church?" because if there is any one religious truth more evident than the others from reason, from the Scriptures, both Old* and New,† from the Apostles' Creed,‡ and from constant tradition, it is this: that "the Catholic Church preserves the true worship of the Deity-she being the fountain of truth, the house of faith, and the temple of God," as an ancient father of the church expresses it. Hence it is as clear as the noonday-light, that by solving this one question, "Which is the true church?" you will at once solve every question of religious controversy that ever has been, or that ever can be agitated. You will not need to spend your life in studying the Sacred Scriptures in their original languages, and their authentic copies, and in confronting passages with each other, from Genesis to Revelations--a task by no means calculated, as is evident, for the bulk of mankind; you will only have to hear what the church teaches upon the several articles of her faith, in order to know with certainty what God has revealed concerning them. Neither need you hearken * Speaking of the future church of the Gentiles, the Almighty thus promises, by Isaiah: "Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear, &c.: as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so I have sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee," &c., liv. See also lix., lx., lxiii. Jerem. xxxiii. Ezech. xxxvii. Dan. ii. Psalm. lxxxix. +"Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Matt. xvi. 18. "I am with you all days, even until THE END OF THE WORLD." Matt. xxviii. 20. "I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you FOR EVER, even the Spirit of Truth; he will teach you ALL TRUTH." John xiv. 16, &c. "The house of God, which is the church of the living God THE PILLAR AND GROUND OF TRUTH." 1 Tim. iii. 14. I BELIEVE THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH, or, I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. Art. ix. The article is read differently by different holy fathers; but, either way, it means the same thing. § Lactan. De Divin. Inst. 1. 4. to contending sects, and doctors of the present or of past times: you will need only to hear the church, which indeed Christ commands you to hear, under pain of being treated as a heathen or a publican. Matt. xviii. 17. I now proceed, dear sir, to your question, “Why, admitting the necessity of being guided by the church, you and your friend may not submit to be guided by the Church of England, or any other Protestant church to which you respectively belong?"-My answer is, Because no such church professes, or, consistently with the fundamental Protestant rule of private judgment, can profess, to be a guide in matters of religion. If you admit, but for an instant, church authority, then Luther, Calvin, and Cranmer, with all the other founders of Protestantism, were evidently heretics in rebelling against it. In short, no other church but the Catholic can claim to be a religious guide, because, evidently, she alone is "the true church of Christ." This assertion leads me to the proof of what I asserted above, respecting the facility and certainty with which persons of good will may solve that most important question, "Which is the true church ?" Luther,* Calvin,† and the Church of England,‡ assign as the characteristics or marks of the true church of Christ, truth of doctrine, and the right administration of the sacraments. But to follow this method of finding out the true church, would be to throw ourselves back into those endless controversies concerning the true doctrine and the right discipline, which it is my present object to put an end to, by demonstrating, at once, "which is the true church." To show the inconsistency of the Protestant method, let us suppose that at a levee, some person were to inquire of his neighbor, "Which of the personages present is the prince regent?" and that he was to receive for answer, "It is the king's eldest son:" would this answer, however true, be of any use to the inquirer? Evidently not. Whereas, if he were told that the prince wore such and such clothes and ornaments, and was seated in such or such a place, these exterior marks would at once put him in possession of the information he was in search of. Thus we Catholics, when we are asked, “Which are the marks of the true church?" point out certain exterior, visible marks, such as plain, unlearned persons can discover, if they will take ordinary pains for this purpose, no less than persons of the greatest abilities and literature; at the same time that they are the very marks of this church, which, as I said above, natural reason, the Scriptures, the creeds, and the fathers, assign and demonstrate to be the true *De Concil. Eccles. + Inst. 1. 41. t Art. 19. marks by which it is to be distinguished. Yes, my dear sir, these marks of the true church are so plain in themselves, and so evidently point it out, that, as the prophet Isaias has foretold, XXXV. 8, fools cannot err in the road to it. They are the flaming beacons which for ever shine on the mountain at the top of the mountains of the Lord's house. Isai. ii. 2. In short, the particular motives for credibility which point out the "true church of Christ," demonstrate this with no less certitude and evidence, than the general motives of credibility demonstrate the “truth of the Christian religion." The chief marks of the true church, which I shall here assign, are not only conformable to reason, Scripture, and tradition, but (which is a most fortunate circumstance) they are such as the Church of England, and most other respectable denominations of Protestants, acknowledge and profess to believe in no less than Catholics. Yes, dear sir, they are contained in those creeds which you recite in your daily prayers, and proclaim in your solemn worship. In fact, what do you say of the church you believe in, when you repeat the Apostles' Creed? You say, I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. Again, how is this church more particularly described in the Nicene Creed, which makes part of your public liturgy? In this you say, I BELIEVE IN ONE CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH.* Hence it evidently follows that the church which you, no less than we, profess to believe in, is possessed of these four marks: UNITY, SANCTITY, CATHOLICITY, and APOSTOLICITY. It is agreed upon, then, that all we have to do, by way of discovering the true church, is to find out which of the rival churches, or communions, is peculiarly ONE-HOLY-CATHOLIC-and APOSTOLIC. Thrice happy, dear sir, I deem it, that we agree together, by the terms of our common creeds, in a matter of such infinite importance, for the happy termination of all our controversies, as are these qualities or characters of the true church, whichever that may be found to be! Still, notwithstanding this agreement in our creeds, I shall not omit to illustrate these characters or marks, as I treat them, by arguments from reason, Scripture, and the ancient fathers. I am, dear sir, &c. JOHN MILNer. * Order of Administration of the Lord's Supper. 9 DEAR SIR LETTER XIV.-TO JAMES BROWN, ESQ. &c. UNITY OF THE CHURCH. وو NOTHING is more clear to natural reason, than that God can not be the author of different religions: for being the Eternal Truth, he cannot reveal contradictory doctrines; and being at the same time, "the Eternal Wisdom," and "the God of peace,' he cannot establish a "kingdom divided against itself." Hence it follows, that the church of Christ must be strictly ONE; one in "doctrine," one in "worship," and one in “ government. This mark of unity in the true church, which is so clear from reason, is still more clear from the following passages of Holy Writ. Our Saviour, then, speaking of himself, in the character of the good Shepherd, says: "I have other sheep" (the Gentiles) "which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be ONE FOLD, and one Shepherd." John, x. 16. To the same effect, addressing his heavenly Father, previously to his passion, he says: "I pray for all that shall believe in me, that THEY MAY BE ONÉ, as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee." John, xvii. 20, 21. In like manner St. Paul emphatically inculcates the unity of the church, where he writes: "We being many are ONE BODY in Christ, and every one members one of another." Rom. xii. 5. Again he writes: "There is ONE BODY and one spirit, as you are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, ONE FAITH, and one baptism." Ephes. iv. 4, 5. Conformably with this doctrine, respecting the necessary unity of the church, this apostle reckons HERESIES among the sins which exclude from the kingdom of God, Gal. v. 20; and he requires that a man who is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, be rejected, Tit. iii. 10. The apostolical fathers, St. Polycarp and St. Ignatius, in thei published epistles, hold precisely the same language on this sub. ject with St. Paul; as does also their disciple, St. Irenæus, who writes thus: "No reformation can be so advantageous, as the evil of schism is pernicious."* The great light of the third century, St. Cyprian, has left us a whole book on the unity of the church, in which, among other similar passages, he writes as follows: "There is but one God, and one Christ, and one faith, and a people joined in one solid body with the cement of concord. This unity cannot suffer a division, nor this one body bear to be disjointed. He cannot have God for his Father, who * De Hær. l. i. c. 3. |