CHAPTER II. POINTS OF AGREEMENT, AND FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ROMANISTS AND PROTESTANTS, AS REGARDS THE IDEA OF THE CHURCH. IN instituting a comparison between different theological systems, it is obviously the proper course, first to examine whether they hold any truths in common, and then, having ascertained how far they agree, to mark the point of divergence, and trace out the subsequent differences hence arising. In no other way is an accurate knowledge of the several schools of doctrinal divinity which have arisen in the Church, and especially of the differences between Protestantism and Romanism, opposed as they are to each other, not absolutely but relatively, to be attained. Obviously proper, however, as this rule is, there is none which has been by controversialists more frequently transgressed. Both Romanists and Protestants have been too much in the custom of insisting strongly upon some one great truth, as if it were peculiar to their own system, without deeming it necessary to inquire whether, and how far, it is admitted by the opposite party: the consequence of which is that, not only have the most incorrect representations been given of the doctrines held on each side respectively, but the real points on which the controversy turns have escaped notice, or at least have not been brought out into a clear light. For example, it is difficult to conceive how any writer, who had carefully compared the public declarations of the Romish and the Protestant Churches, on the subject under discussion, could have thought of stating the differences thus:-"The chief question to be answered is this: How do we arrive at a true knowledge of the doctrine of Christ; or rather of the plan of redemption proposed for our acceptance in Christ Jesus? The Protestant replies, By searching the Scriptures, which cannot deceive: the Catholic (Romanist) says, By means of the church, in which, and in which alone, we attain to the true understanding of Scripture:" or of representing the teaching of Protestantism as follows:- "Luher considered each believer as absolutely independent of any 1 religious community; such being, in his view, quite unnecessary, inasmuch as God alone" (i. e. without any external instrument) "teaches the Christian." "What, according to the Protestant view, can the Church be, but a purely invisible community ?" (a community, it is meant, solely of the Spirit, without visible notes of any kind). "As regards the origin of the Church, Luther's view was as follows:-Faith in Christ strikes root in some particular individual" (independently of any external means); “if this faith advances to maturity, and is openly professed, the individual becomes a recognised disciple of the Saviour. Should he find others of the same mind with himself, they unite together, and form a society, publishing a confession of what they believe: and thus it is that the Church, as a visible body, comes into existence;"* (in other words, Protestants hold the Church to be a mere voluntary association, which acknowledges no higher authority than the private judgment of those who choose to belong to it.) When an author like Moehler, not of the inferior class of Romish controversialists best known in this country, but occupying a high place among the theologians of his Church, can thus represent, or rather misrepresent, the views of his opponents, it is the less to bę wondered at that some amongst ourselves, owing, no doubt, to an mperfect acquaintance with the subject, should entertain misconceptions equally gross, and even absurd. It can be attributed to nothing but an oversight, that a recent advocate of (so-called) Church principles should thus describe what he conceives to be the Protestant, or Evangelical, theory:-"There the Church is not considered as intervening in any way between the Saviour and the individual, but rather it is regarded as an institution of convention, resting upon grounds of religious expediency; and her laws as dependent upon the will of individuals, whether few or many. The scheme of salvation is addressed by God not through one channel to a vast visible body, but to a selected number of particular persons. This salvation is conveyed direct by an operation exclusively internal, &c. &c."† In order to obviate mistakes of this kind, it will be advisable, in the first instance, to point out to what extent both parties are agreed; and thus to clear the way to an accurate apprehension of the true point in dispute between them. Moehler's Symbolik, pp. 359. 414. 418. and 421. is the German one of 1838. The edition of this work referred t + Church Principles considered in their Results, by W. E. Gladstone, Esq. London, 1840 p. 126. The most cursory glance at the extracts above given will convince the reader that on both sides it is admitted that the Christian life is essentially a social one; in other words, that Christ came into the world not only to reveal certain truths, or to establish an unseen fellowship between Himself and His followers, but to found a Church upon earth. A state of isolation and independency is no more the natural tendency of Protestantism than of Romanism. "We hold," says the Belgic Confession, "that since out of the Church there is no salvation, no one, of whatever order or dignity he may be, is at liberty to separate himself from the congregation of saints, and live in solitary independence; but that all are bound to unite themselves to it, to preserve its unity, and to minister to the edification of their brethren, the members of the same body." The obligation of social union among Christians is so unequivocally declared in Scripture, that no persons calling themselves Christians, and acknowledging the authority of the sacred writings, have been found to deny it. Considered in one point of view, indeed, religion is a transaction between God and the individual spirit of man: the true life of the Christian is hid with Christ in God, and the exercises of it, repentance, faith, and love, are matters strictly personal, and cannot be predicated, except in a loose and improper sense, of a community. And, no doubt, it is conceivable that nothing more than such a solitary communion of the individual worshipper with God might have been designed by the Divine Founder of Christianity: that his followers might have been intended to form no visible associations, but to hold, each in the solitude of his own heart, intercourse with Deity. There is nothing positively absurd in such a supposition; at the same time, there is a strong antecedent improbability against it. For man is essentially a social being, and human life, as distinguished from that of the brutes, is a life of communion and fellowship; the faculties of reason and speech, which are denied to the lower animals, unequivocally manifesting the divine intention that men should congregate into polities.† Moreover, it is only in a social state that men's faculties, whether moral or intellectual, attain any high degree of expansion or improvement. "He that suffices for himself," the ancient philosopher tells us, “must either be a brute or a God." It is only in social Conf. Belg. s. 28. † * Ανθρωπος φύσει πολιτικὸν ζῶον. - Λόγον μόνον ἄνθρωπος ἔχει τῶν ζώων· ὁδὲ λόγος ἐπὶ τῶ δηλοῦν ἐστι τὸ συμφέρον καὶ τὸ βλαβερόν, ὥστε τὸ δίκαιον καὶ τὸ ἄδικον. Ἡ δὲ τούτων κοινωνία ποιεῖ οἰκίαν καὶ πόλιν. Arist. Pol. 1. i. c. 2. combinations that a sphere is opened for the exercise of the moral faculties; that a division of labour takes place, natural superiority of mind or body assumes its due place, arts are cultivated, and everything comprised in the term civilisation, makes progress. And the more civilised a community becomes, the higher it rises in the scale of intelligence, the more closely will its members be connected together, not merely by laws and institutions, but by the invisible bond of mutual dependence, and co-operation. Judging, then, by what we know of the actual constitution of man, and of the conditions necessary to his intellectual and moral culture, we should deem it in the highest degree unlikely that those who, from age to age, were to be partakers of the spiritual life of which Christ is the source, should be thereby brought into a new relation towards God merely, and not, also, towards each other: that there should be true religion in the world, but no Church. It is almost superfluous to remark that the anticipations which we should be thus led to form have been fully realised. The Divine Spirit, of which the Christian is partaker through Christ, not only gives him access directly to the Father, but also connects him with every other Christian: so that, as there is one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, there is also one baptism, and one body, and no one can be in communion with Christ, in the full sense of the words, without also being in communion with Christ's Church. In accordance with the language of ancient prophecy when describing the Messiah's kingdom,-language which always suggests the idea of organised unity, as distinguished from a mere collection of atoms, our Lord, from the very first, contemplated His followers as forming social combinations. The kingdom of heaven upon earth was to be like a field of corn, a net full of fishes, and a household: or, to cite another image, Christians were to bear the same relation to Christ which the branches do to the vine, the same hidden life which nourishes each in particular, forming a bond of union between all. Indeed, in two passages, our Lord, by a kind of prolepsis, applies to the company of his disciples the very term which afterwards became the one commonly used to distinguish them from the Jewish synagouge; the term, xxλroia, or Church. And when His earthly mission was about to close, in the solemn prayer which he offered up for His disciples, His * St. Matt. xvi. 18,-"Upon this rock I will build my church;" and xviii. 17, - "Tell it unto the church." Our word "church," like the German kirche, is derived from upiakóv, i. e. the Lord's house. repeated petition was, that "they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee; that they may be one in Us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me."* When the Church was formally constituted on the day of Pentecost, its members appear at once in outward and visible union with each other. Even the promised Comforter descended upon the Apostles and disciples, not as they were scattered here and there, but when "they were all with one accord in one place." And thenceforth it was the rule of the Divine administration to add "to the Church," that is, to the existing society of Christians, "such as should be saved."、 Equally evident is it, that to affirm that Romanists teach that the Church is visible, Protestants that it is invisible, is to misrepresent the real state of the case. Both parties hold that the Church is visible; though it is quite true that when they come to explain their meaning, they differ very materially. A purely invisible Church is a fiction discarded on both sides. The following declaration of the French Confession expresses the common sentiment of all Protestants: -"We openly affirm that where the Word of God is not received, where there is no profession of faith, and administration of the Sacraments, there, properly speaking, we cannot affirm that there is any Church."+ To assign any "notes," that is visible signs, such as the preaching of the Word and the administration of the Sacraments, to a community absolutely invisible, would be a manifest absurdity; but these, according to all the Protestant confessions, are the notes of the- or rather a Church. The Reformers were careful to explain distinctly that, while rejecting the Romish definition of the Church, they by no means, as their adversaries falsely insinuated, reduced the latter to a mere philosophical idea, a Utopia, having no actual existence, or without visible tokens of its presence. "We do not," says Melancthon, in reply to the Papal theologians, "as some cavillers affirm, dream of a Platonic republic: we say that the Church is an existing reality; and we assign the notes of it, the Word and the Sacraments."+ Christians, it has been already observed, were to form a society, or societies: but no human association can exist, much less endure, without some visible tokens to mark the incorporation, and John xvii. 21. + Conf. Gall. Art. 28. "Neque vero somniamus nos Platonicam civitatem, ut quidam impie cavillantur; sed dicimus existere hanc ecclesiam : et addimus notas, puram doctrinam evangelii, et sacramenta." - Apol. Conf. Aug. c. 4. |