kind indulgence, I will proceed to establish the second and third propositions above stated; which, you will remember, consist of the two assertions:-that Christ intended the Primacy to be a perpetual institution in his Church; and that the Roman Catholic Church alone is in possession of this important element of government. Whatever may be your own particular religious views on this subject, please lend me your patient attention, while I will proceed to spread out before you such a portion of the evidence establishing these two great truths, as the narrow limits of one Lecture will allow. May God vouchsafe to bestow his grace upon us all, my beloved brethren, that, after centuries of separation and confusion, we may all at length be conducted back again to that blessed unity of faith and love which characterized your ancestors, as well as mine, for fifteen long centuries, before all these dissensions arose among Christians! May we, like they, be united by clinging to the Chair of Peter. May God's grace and light, without which we can do nothing, lead us all to this quiet haven of rest, where we may be united as brethren around the same holy altar, and may have but one heart and one soul, like the first Christians; through Jesus Christ, our common Lord and Master. Amen. LECTURE XI. CHURCH GOVERNMENT-THE PAPACY. THE NINTH EVIDENCE OF CATHOLICITY, (CONCLUDED.) The Roman Church-Its early fame-Recapitulation of preceding Lecture-The second proposition stated and proved-The third proposition-Already virtually admitted by our opponents-A cloud of witnesses-Why Rome was selected as the seat of the Primacy-St. Peter at Rome and first Roman bishop-The Chair of Peter-The Roman episcopacy and Primacy not incompatibleThe alleged silence of the new testament-Roman Pontiffs always viewed by Christian antiquity as the successors of St. Peter-The testimony of the first three centuries-The cases of Popes St. Victor and St. Stephen-The ancient patriarchates-The first eight general councils-The sixth canon of Nice-The Isidorian Decretals-Testimonies of ancient Greek and Latin fathers-The opponents of the Papacy, ancient and modern-Alleged abuses of the Papacy-Its uncompromising character-The charge of persecution-Balancing accounts-Temporal power of the Popes-Their prohibiting divorces and rebuking powerful tyrants-Charge that the Papacy is despotic repelled—The nature of Church government under the Papacy-Appeals to prejudice and passion-The true issue-Recapitulation-The ninth evidence of Catholicity-A fuller definition of the Church. "First I give thanks to my God through Jesus Christ for you all; BECAUSE YOUR FAITH IS SPOKEN OF IN THE WHOLE WORLD." Romans i. 8. In these terms of high eulogy did the glorious apostle of the gentiles speak of the Church of Rome, nearly eighteen hundred years ago. His heart was filled with holy joy, and his tongue broke forth into a canticle of praise to God, when he heard on all sides the most glowing accounts of the faith of the Romans. He had not yet visited the imperial city of the Cæsars; * and the foundations of the Church there, the fame of which had already been sounded forth in the whole world, had been laid by other hands than his own. Who built up that flourishing Church, so famous from its very infancy? Whence its importance in all subsequent ages of Christian history? And why do we now, after the lapse of eighteen centuries, still look up to it, and speak of it, with the reverence and in the terms of praise, with which it was looked up to and spoken of by the whole world in the days of St. Paul? I shall endeavor to answer these questions in the course of the present Lecture. I beg of you to dismiss all preconceived opinions, and to give me an impartial and attentive hearing. You will recollect, that, in the preceding Lecture, I rested the whole evidence in favor of the Primacy on the establishment of three consecutive propositions involving plain questions of fact: first, that Christ instituted a Primacy of power and jurisdiction in his Church; second, that he wished it to be perpetuated therein to the end of the world; and third, that the Roman Catholic Church alone has this feature of government. The first proposition, I trust, I have already proved, by establishing the Primacy of St. Peter. I proceed now to the establishment of the other two. PERPETUATED IN HIS II. CHRIST INTENDED AND WISHED THAT THE PRIMACY INSTITUTED BY HIMSELF SHOULD BE CHURCH TO THE END OF THE WORLD. This proposition need not detain us long. It is proved by precisely the same species of evidence by which we establish the permanency and perpetuity of baptism, of the holy eucharist, of the preached gospel, and of all the other institutions of Christianity. The Church was to continue to the end of time just such as Christ established it; unchanged in all its substantial features and parts. A Church which does not correspond His epistle to the Romans was written about twenty-four years after the ascension of Christ, or about the year 58. He informs us himself in this epistle, that he had not yet been to Rome, but was very desirous of visiting that city. Chapter i. verses 10, 11. in every one of its institutions with that founded by Christ, would be a human, not a divine Church; at least not the Church of Christ. The addition or subtraction of one single doctrine or institution would adulterate its purity, and destroy its integrity. Our adversaries cannot deny the soundness of this principle; in fact, they generally admit it, and speak a great deal about restoring the Church to its primitive purity, and making it precisely such as it came originally from the hands of Christ. Discard this principle, and you at once break off all connexion between the original Church of Christ, and any Church of the present day claiming to be that Church; and you thus virtually renounce Christianity itself, and plunge into the gulf of infidelity. Besides, there are, if possible, much stronger reasons for maintaining the perpetuity of the Primacy, than there exist for asserting that of any other original institution of Christ: for this is a primary element of the Church, essential to its wellbeing and to its very existence. Without it, the Church could not possibly have remained in its original oneness and integrity, even for one century after the death of the apostles. It would have been broken up into fragments, and its institutions would have been scattered to the winds. It would have been left like an army without a general, a navy without an admiral, a kingdom without a ruler, a sheepfold without a shepherd. Divisions, schisms, rebellions, would have started up on all sides; and there would have been no remedy to the ever increasing evil. The sheepfold would have been dispersed or devoured by ravenous wolves, lurking within it in the garb of sheep. While the apostles lived, their commanding authority and personal inspiration might have secured unity and quelled religious insurrection; after their death what but a divinely instituted Primacy, generally recognized as still existing in all its pristine vigor, could have secured that good, or averted this crying evil? This is precisely the view taken by all the ancient Christian fathers, who had occasion to allude to the subject. Thus St. Cyprian, the holy martyr bishop of Carthage in the middle of the third century, lays it down as an undoubted principle uni versally received at his time, that the Primacy was instituted by Christ for the purpose of securing unity to his Church: "That he (Christ) might manifest unity, he ordained by his own authority, that its origin should begin with one single individual (Peter)." Thus also, St. Jerome, writing against the heretic Jovinian in the fourth century, says expressly: "One among the twelve is chosen, that, a head being constituted, the occasion of schism might be taken away.”† Surely, my brethren, the danger of schism greatly increased after the death of the apostles; and, therefore, if Christ deemed the Primacy necessary for the Church during their life-time, he must have judged it still more necessary afterwards; and must consequently have willed its perpetuation to the very end of time. In proportion as the Church would extend its empire over the nations, and the number of its children would increase, in the very same ratio would the importance and necessity of this great restraining and conservative principle become more apparent and more strikingly evident to all. Christ foresaw, too, that in the course of time the fervor of his disciples would gradually cool down, and their faith would become more and more impaired in vividness and vigor:-are we then to say that, with this clear foresight, he made no permanent provision fully adequate to meet the ever increasing danger to unity? If we think so for one moment, we virtually deny his wisdom and goodness; and thereby reject not only his divinity, but his divine mission itself. Therefore the second proposition may be considered as fully established, and I pass at once to the third. III. THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH ALONE HAS THE PRIMACY ORIGINALLY INSTITUTED BY JESUS CHRIST IN THE PERSON OF PETER. This, too, is equally manifest with the two preceding propositions. No other Christian denomination even claims to have * De Unitate Ecclesiæ; a golden treatise, in which, reasoning against the heretics of his day, he takes precisely the same Catholic ground which we now occupy, while arguing against Protestants. "Unus inter duodecim eligitur, ut capite constituto schismatis tolleretur accasio." Advers. Jovin. Lib. i. c. 14. |