Peter was,-endowed with an equal share of honour and power; but Christ begins with one, and the primacy is assigned to Peter, in order that it may be shown that there is one Church, and one chair..... Of this Church, how can he be supposed to hold the faith, who holds not the unity? How can he who resists the Church (who deserts the chair of Peter, upon whom the Church is founded), hope that he is in the Church?" "Where, and by whom, remission of sins is given is plain. For to Peter first, upon whom the Lord founded the Church, and from whom he derived the origin of unity, was committed a power of remitting on earth sins which should be remitted in heaven. And after his resurrection, He declared to all the Apostles, 'As the Father hath sent,' &c." "In addition to their former misdeeds, they (the schismatics), having appointed a pseudo-bishop for themselves, dare to repair to Rome, and to the chair of Peter, the chief church, whence the unity of the priesthood (sacerdotalis unitas) took its rise." "Those who took their journey to you (Cornelius), we exhorted that they would acknowledge, and hold fast by, the root and mother of the Catholic Church (the Church of Rome)... We directed letters to be sent throughout our province, exhorting all our colleagues to ratify your election, and steadfastly to maintain fellowship and union with you,- that is, with the Catholic Church itself." Moehler, while granting to the Protestant that the texts cited from Scripture to prove the primacy of the bishop of Rome are insufficient for the purpose, may well point to such passages as the foregoing, as evidence sufficient that, even so early as the third century, "the Pope was but waiting a summons to make his appearance." I 2. If from the conception of the Church which the writings of Cyprian and Augustin exhibit, we pass to the functions with which they invest it, the evidence on which we must assign a very early origin to the errors of Rome becomes still more decisive. The theory which they propound, or tacitly assume, is precisely that of Trent, viz. that the Church is the inheritress of the prerogatives, royal, priestly, and prophetical, which Scripture assigns to the Saviour, and presents herself to men as the vicar and representative of Christ upon earth, the repository, and even the source, De Unit. Eccles. It is right to mention that the words inclosed in brackets, "qui cathedram Petri, super quem fundata est ecclesiæ deserit," are by Baluzius adjudged to be an interpolation.- See his remarks ad loc. † Ad Jubajan. Epist. 73. 2 Epist. 45. Ad Cornel. Epist. 55. Ad Cornel. of all grace. The human instrument throws into the shade the divine agent, and Christ is virtually deposed from his mediatorial throne. Thus, as regards the communication of regenerating grace, Cyprian's ordinary mode of speaking may be collected from the following passages:-"The Lord invites those who thirst to come and drink of the living water which flows from Him. Whither then is he who thirsts to betake himself? To the heretics, among whom the fountain of living water exists not, or to the one Church, which upon one (Peter), who received the keys of it, was by the word of the Lord founded? This is that one Church which possesses the whole power of her spouse and Lord . . . . . Those who in Samaria believed were baptized within the pale of the Church, to which alone it has been granted to communicate the grace of baptism and remission of sins."*" But if the birth of baptism confers regeneration, how can heresy, which is not the bride of Christ, generate sons of God? It is the Church alone which, being united to Christ, spiritually generates sons, according to the apostle's observation,-'Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for it, that he might cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word.' .... Since the new birth of Christians takes place in baptism, but the regenerating and sanctifying power of baptism is with the bride of Christ, who alone can spiritually generate sons to God, how can he have God for his father who has not the Church for his mother?"+ "It is manifest that they who are not in the Church must be numbered among the (spiritually) dead, . . . since there is one Church, to which the gift of eternal life has been vouchsafed, which eternally lives, and which quickens the people of God." So Firmilian, in his epistle to Cyprian: "The second birth which takes place in baptism generates sons of God. But if there is but one spouse of Christ,-viz. the Catholic Church,- she alone it is that generates sons of God. . . . . You have shown in your epistle that the name of Christ avails only in the Church, to which alone Christ has vouchsafed the power of (imparting) divine grace." § Augustin follows in the steps of his predecessor. "The Church forsooth brings forth by baptism all (who are brought forth), whether it be from her own womb, or from that of her handmaid" (the schismatical bodies.) || In like manner, remission of sins is by both fathers made the prerogative • Epist. 73. Ad Jubajan. † Epist. 74. Ad Pomp. Firm. Epist. Epist. 71. Ad Quint. of the Church. "The dove," says Augustin, "remits" (sins.) Cyprian's version of the article of the Apostles' creed on the forgiveness of sins-"I believe in the forgiveness of sins through the Holy church"*-has been already noticed: whatever may be its value in a critical point of view, it sufficiently indicates the theological tendencies of the writer. But to affirm in the abstract that the Church possesses the power of generating sons of God, and forgiving sins, is obviously to leave the theory incomplete; for where is this Church, and by what organs does she act? It has been observed in the foregoing pages that in such expressions as these the Church really means the clergy; and in fact, the pages of Cyprian afford abundant proof of the facility with which the abstract passes into the concrete, and the representatives of the Church come to stand in the place of the Church itself. By this father the Catholic bishops, and by commission from him the rest of the clergy, are habitually spoken of as the specific channels through which the grace of Christ is conveyed to His people. "In this (Church) we (the bishops) preside; for its honour and unity we contend; its grace and glory we with faithful devotion defend. We, by divine permission, water the thirsty people of God; we guard the boundaries of the vital fountain (baptism). Why, then, for maintaining the right of our possession, should we be deemed violators of unity?" "The power of + remitting sins," writes Firmilian, "was given to the apostles, and to those churches which they, being sent by Christ, founded, and to the bishops who, by vicarious ordination, succeeded them."‡ The same thing is expressed, or implied, in a numbers of passages, which at the same time show how nearly Cyprian approached to the Romish doctrine of priestly intention. "The Scripture says, 'Abstain from strange water, and drink not from a strange fountain. In order, therefore, that the water of baptism may wash sin away, it is necessary that it be cleansed and sanctified by the priest. . . But how can he cleanse the water who himself is unclean, and destitute of the Spirit? Or how can he by baptism convey to another remission of sins, whose own sins, as being those of a schismatic, are not remitted?" "Who is there of any maturity of wisdom in the Church who would maintain that the mere invo. cation of the names (of the Trinity) suffices to the remission of sins and the sanctifying of baptism, when every one knows that this * Epist. 70. Ad Jan. See also Epist. 76. Ad Mag. Epist. 70. Ad Januar. is of avail when he also who baptizes has the Holy Spirit (and not otherwise) ? "* "Whereas the sins of each person are remitted in baptism, the Lord in his gospel teaches us that they can be remitted by those alone who have the Holy Spirit."+ "Can he give water from the fountains of the Church who himself is not in the Church? Can he convey the salutary draughts of Paradise (baptism) who, perverse, and self-condemned, withers with eternal drought outside the Church?" "I (Cyprian) remit all kinds of sin; even those committed against God I examine not with the full rigour of judicial inquiry. By remitting sins more than I ought I almost make myself a transgressor."§ "Let each of you, I entreat, confess his sin, while life is yet his; while confession is available; while satisfaction and remission effected through the priests (facta per sacerdotes) is acceptable with God." | From the passages already cited, it will easily be surmised that in Cyprian's and Augustin's theology the sacraments hold a prominent, if not an exclusive, place. In point of fact, what in modern times has been termed the sacramental system appears, especially in Cyprian's writings, in full maturity of growth. In Cyprian's view the application of Christ's merits to the saving of the individual is effected by a series of ordinances, committed to the custody of the Church, - that is, the clergy, each of which has a specific grace attached to it not to be obtained through any other channel. For example, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to extract from Cyprian's works a single passage in which the Word, and its correlative faith, are made to bear any part in the process of regeneration: it is baptism, and baptism alone, to which the salutary change is ever ascribed. ¶ Baptism confers the new birth; delivers from spiritual death; makes men sons of God and Christ's sheep (baptizandus est ut ovis fiat; quia una est aqua in ecclesia sancta quæ oves faciat); and is the door to eternal life.** The imposition of episcopal hands, or confirmation, which Cyprian more than once calls a sacrament, †† carries on the work begun in Epist. Firmil. Epist. 55. Ad Cornel. † Epist. 76. Ad Mag. Epist. 73. Ad Jub. On this point Augustin, as usual, speaks more scripturally than Cyprian. "Forms Sacramenti datur per Baptismum; forma justitiæ per Evangelium."-Cont. Lit. Pet. 1. iii. s. 68. ** Epp. 52. 63. 71. 73. "De eo vel maxime tibi scribendum. . . . eos qui sint foris extra ecclesiam tincti .... quando ad nos atque ad ecclesiam quæ una est, venerint, baptizari oportere, eo quod parum sit eis manum imponere ad accipiendum Spiritum Sanctum, nisi accipiant et ecclesiæ baptismum. Tunc enim demum plene sanctificari et esse filii Dei possint, si sacramento utroque nascantur."- Epist. 72. Ad Steph. Compare Epist. 73. baptism; the eucharist is a safeguard against the assaults of every enemy; and a penitential discipline restores the lapsed. † The power of faith, or a conscious reliance upon the merits of Christ, in securing the blessings of redemption, the leading doctrine of St. Paul, is nowhere recognised by Cyprian; and even of Augustin the same must be said. Perhaps, however, the most striking proof of the undue prominence which the theology of the age had begun to assign to the sacraments, is derived from Cyprian's mode of interpreting certain passages of the Old Testament. In the river which watered the garden of Eden; ‡ in the purifying lustrations of the law; § in the numerous passages of the prophets which describe the blessings of the Gospel under the figure of water; and in Christ's address to the woman of Samaria, and invitation to all that are athirst to come unto him and drink (John, vii. 37.); ¶ Cyprian sees nothing but allusions to the sacra ment of baptism. "As often," he says, "as water by itself is mentioned in Scripture, it is baptism that is meant ; as we see, for example, in Isaiah, xliii. 19. (I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.') In this passage, God, through the prophet, predicted that in places which formerly had been without water streams should abound, and water the elect people of God, that is, those who are made sons of God by the generation of baptism. So in another place it is foretold that the Jews, if athirst for Christ, should come to us and drink, that is, should obtain the grace of baptism: 'He caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them; he clave the rock also, and the waters gushed out.' (Isaiah, xlviii. 21.)" Of the Eucharist, too, the Jewish scriptures are, according to Cyprian, full. He discovers prophetical intimations of this sacrament in Noah's drinking wine; in the bread and wine of Melchisedech; in the description of wisdom in the book of Proverbs, killing her beasts and mingling her wine; in the prophecy of Jacob respecting Judah, ** "Ut quos excitamus et hortamur ad prælium non inermes et nudos relinquamus, sed protectione sanguinis et corporis Christi muniamus; et cum ad hoc fiat eucharistia ut possit accipientibus esse tutela, quos tutos esse contra adversarium volumus, munimento dominica saturitatis armemur."- Epist. 54. Ad Cornel. † See the book De Lapsis, passim. Epist. 70. Ad Jan. **Augustin's more perspicacious intellect taught him the fallacy of this rule. "Non enim semper ubia quam nominat Scriptura, hoc visibile Baptismi sacramentum vult intelligi; sed aliquando ipsum, aliquando aliud. Jam enim hoc visibili Baptismo etiam alios discipuli Domini baptizaverant, antequam veniret in eos secundum ejus promissionem Spiritus Sanctus: de quo tamen idem Jesus dicit, 'Si quis sitit, veniat et bibat'. . . . Ecce aquam dicit Spiritum, qui nondum erat datus, cum jam aquâ illà baptismi multis fuisset data."De Unit. Eccles. s. 65. |