tants can pretend to justify their separation, and the formation of a new religious system. Therefore, the Catholic principle supposes a provision for the maintenance of unfailing holiness in the Church, as one of its essential qualities; the Protestant assumes the destruction of that holiness as the ground of its justification. The third characteristic is Catholicity. And here, indeed, we have the advantage of the name itself. It may be said that a name or designation is nothing—that we only arrogate it to ourselves, and have no right to it; and consequently, that we are only grounding our claims on usurpation, when we consider ourselves the Catholic Church, because we have that name. Now, it is very remarkable, how, in the Church of old, this title was prized and valued; and how the Fathers, when proving that the Catholic, is the true Church, observe that her adversaries wished to deprive her of that title, but never could succeed. They disputed her right to it, and yet were obliged to give it to her. In like manner, whoever considers the present state of things, must acknowledge, that it would be as impossible to root out any established form of speech, as to make men cease calling us Catholics. They have added the word "Roman" to our title; but still, the term "Catholic" cannot be separated from our name. At the same time, no other Church has succeeded in getting that title for itself. In several late works, we may notice the attempt to speak of the English Church as "the Catholic Church;" but such a phrase can only lead readers into error, or leave them in perplexity. To show the strength of this position, I will read you a few extracts from the Fathers of the Church; and you will hear how clearly they speak. In the first century, it is said of St Polycarp, that he used constantly to offer up prayers for the members "of the whole Catholic Church diffused throughout the world."* I mention this, merely to show, how early the name was assumed in the Church of Christ, although it was not then so extended *Euseb. H. E. Lib. iv. c. xv. as in later times. Three centuries after, St Cyril, one of the most learned Doctors of the Greek Church, and Patriarch of Jerusalem, telling a person who had been converted to the Catholic Church, to persevere and keep out of the conventicles of other religions, says—" Should you come into a city, do not enquire merely for the House of God, for so heretics call their places of meeting: nor yet ask merely for the church; but say, the Catholic church-for this is the proper name." St Pacianus, a Father of the Latin Church, uses precisely the same argument:- "In the time of the Apostles, you will say, no one was called Catholic. Be it so: but when heresies afterwards began, and under different names, attempts were made to disfigure and divide our holy religion, did not the Apostolic people require a name, whereby to mark their unity; a proper appellation to distinguish the head? Accidentally entering a populous city, where are Marcionites, Novatians, and others who call themselves Christians, how shall I discover where my own people meet, unless they be called Catholics? I may not know the origin of the name; but what has not failed through so long a time, came not surely from individual man. It has nothing to say to Marcion, nor Appelles, nor Montanus. No heretic is its author. Is the authority of Apostolic men, of the blessed Cyprian, of so many aged Bishops, so many Martyrs and Confessors, of little weight? Were not they of sufficient consequence to establish an appellation which they always used? Be not angry, my brother: Christian is my name, Catholic is my surname."† any In the same century, St Epiphanius, a writer of the Greek Church, tells us that, at Alexandria, those schismatics who adhered to Meletius, called their Church "the Church of the Martyrs," while the rest retained for theirs the name of "the Catholic Church."+ But another, and still more striking Catech. xviii. n. xxvi. p. 729. Ep. 1, ad Sympronian. Bib. PP. Max. T. iv. p. 306. passage, is in St Augustine. He says, "It is our duty to hold to the Christian religion, and the communion of that Church which is Catholic, and is so called, not by us only, but by all its adversaries. For, whether they be so disposed or not, in conversing with others, they must use the word Catholic, or they will not be understood."*-Again: "Among the many considerations that bind me to the Church, is the name of Catholic, which, not without reason, in the midst of so many heresies, this Church alone has so retained, that although all heretics wish to acquire the name, should a stranger ask where the Catholics assemble, the heretics themselves will not dare to point out any of their own places of meeting." These examples suffice to show the force of that name; they prove how preciously the ancient Christians guarded it as we do; how others endeavoured to wrest it from them; and how they contrasted it with those names which the others took. They remark how some were called Marcionites, others Donatists, or Nestorians; but none ever dared to take the appellation of Catholic; so that if one asked, even then, which was the Catholic chapel or church, they did not presume to direct him to any but that of the true Catholics. Thus, as I have observed, the very title itself seems to give us claims to this characteristic; yet, not merely have we the title, but the thing itself. For our idea of the Church is that of its being a society or government constituted by Christ, with full dominion over the whole of the earth; so that men, whatever country they inhabit, may be brought into connexion with, and attach themselves to, it; and its endeavours to verify its name, by the extension of Christianity and Catholicity over the world, have been successful. But every other Church confined within its own state, every Church constituted according to a peculiar confession of faith, which its members have voluntarily defined, every such Church excludes necessarily that extension of dominion, that universality of communion, which is designated by the name of Catholic. * De vera Religione, c. vii. T. i. p. 752. † Contra E. Fundam. c. iv. tom. viii. p. 153. Once more, who are Apostolical? Is it meant by this term, that the doctrines taught in the Church are those of the Apostles? Most certainly not. That the Apostolic doctrines will be taught in the Church of Christ is certain; but that the teaching of true doctrines is the definition of Apostolicity, is manifestly erroneous. For Apostolicity of doctrine is identical with truth in doctrine; and the discovery of one is the discovery of the other. One cannot be a means for finding out the other. It, consequently, must consist in some outward mark, which may lead to the discovery of where the Apostolical doctrines are. It is in the Apostolic succession that this principle resides,-in having the line of descent distinctly traced from the present holder of the Apostolical See, through those who preceded him, to the Blessed Peter, who first sat therein. This is what was meant of old by the Apostolic Church; and this is the sense in which the Fathers applied the mark. I satisfied you, in my last discourse, how Eusebius, St Optatus, St Irenæus, and others, proved their faith to be the true one, by showing that they were in communion with the Church of Rome, and could trace their pedigree, through it, from the Apostles. Thus did they understand Apostolicity to be given as an outward mark, in the continued and unaltered succession from the time of the Apostles. Here, again, although the matter is manifest, I do not wish to take it, as one of fact, but to establish it on principle. We are the only Church which claims this succession; others do not; at least, the only way they can, is by tracing their Episcopal line back to the time when they separated from us, and then claim as their's that succession which forms the chain of our uninterrupted Hierarchy. Such a course is at once oblique, and goes not directly to the root. They wish to be engrafted on us, rather than pretend to any root in the earth itself. Yet the Catholic Church considers them as separatists from it, and consequently, they have no right to the succession which rests on her line. In this manner, adopting those lights which creeds or sym bols of faith can give us, we come to this important conciusion--that on principle, the Catholic Church alone maintains possession of these characteristics usually considered as the marks or notes of the Church; that the rule of faith of other Churches, so far from supposing these to be in their possession, entirely excludes them, and allows them not to be held as ground of adhesion to themselves. And putting the question upon an obvious, practical ground, I much doubt whether a preacher or clergyman of any Church but ours, ever thought of exhorting his congregation to hold and prize their religion, or consider it exclusively true, on the grounds of its being manifestly One, Catholic, or Apostolical.* A word, my brethren, which I have just used, brings me to another very important topic, connected with our present subject; I mean that doctrine which is known by the almost ɔdious appellation of, exclusive salvation. This is considered the harshest, the most intolerable point of the Catholic creed, touching its rule of faith; that we hold ourselves so exclusively in possession of God's truth, as to consider all others *There is a striking contrast between the religion of the first ages, and those sects which have sprung up in modern times, in the names wherein they respectfully gloried. The former boasted of the name of Catholics, the latter have chosen a name expressive of uncatholicity; for to be called Protestants, or protestors against any other religion, is at least an admission of a rival, and, I may say, of a stronger, power. It is a name of separation, of antagonism, of dissent: it supposes struggle and warfare, so long as the name shall last,-a creed built on rejection, and formed of negations, rather than a consistent and well ordered system of belief. Again, they of old loved to be called Apostolic; the moderns prefer being named Evangelical. The former term seizes at once the great and visible demonstration of the faith, it carries the mind to the fundamental evidences of Christianity, it guides the thought along an unbroken succession of links from the latest time to the original reservoirs of incorruptible truth; the latter shows that the dead letter of the word, variously divined, and under. stood, is the text of religious code; in other words, that the little light of individual capacity, as it is poured over its pages or successive lines, forms the guidance of each precious soul on the perilous and mysteriozз path of salvation! Which name seems most in accordance with the merciful ways of providence on behalf of man? which places the evidences of his truth on the firmer basis? And does not the contrast of names, as indicative of a contrast of principles, stand well as now, if, for the ancient Church, we substitute the Catholic? |