THE

CHRISTIAN WATCHMAN,

AND

MIDLAND COUNTIES' PROTESTANT MAGAZINE.

THE CHARACTER AND TOKENS OF THE TRUE CATHOLIC CHURCH,

BY THE REV. RICHARD WALDO SIBTHORP, B.D. (Late Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.) (Continued from page 39.)

True Protestants will concur also with Roman Catholics in allowing that the "Unity," which both admit to be a token of the true Church, is a 66 Unity of Communion." They maintain also that it exists among themselves fully to the degree in which it can be required as a mark of "Unity;" and that beyond this it has not so existed in the Romish Church, that that Church can say it has been always and alone characterized by "Unity in Communion." Among all real Christians as well as Protestants there is an entire communion in the OBJECT of worship. They all have one and the same FATHER; one and the same SAVIOUR, the LORD JESUS CHRIST, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named;* and one and the same HOLY SPIRIT. In them is strictly fulfilled that prayer of CHRIST, That they all may be ONE; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be ONE in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.† The union of the FATHER and the SON is not a visible, tangible, nor external union. It is mysterious and spiritual. And such is the communion existing between all +John xvii, 21.

*Ephesians iii, 15.

E

true Christians. It does not exclude, but it does not necessarily consist in outward communion. They all have one object, to glorify GOD, serve their SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST, and save their own souls, and those of others: they have all the same enemies, Satan, the world, and sin: the same hope; mainly the same trials, cares, and temptations; they have a communion of interests, joys, and sorrows. One and the same Blessed SPIRIT dwelling in them all, knits and unites them to each other, in the Communion of the Church Militant; and by His hallowing influences and holy affections, and blessed hope which He produces in them, knits them to the Holy Angels and Spirits of the just made perfect in the Communion of the Church Triumphant; and thus is fully effected "the Communion of Saints." And, by the same SPIRIT, they have a union, mysterious and spiritual, with the FATHER and the SON, as well as with each other, and form, what the Church is represented to be, one body under one invisible HEAD—one wife of one heavenly SPOUSE -one household under one DIVINE MASTER-one fold under one good Shepherd, the LORD JESUS CHRIST. Roman Catholics define "the Communion of Saints." to be "a Communion of all holy persons in all holy things." I object not to the definition, if it be only made clear what "all holy things" mean. Are all external rites and ceremonies intended? Is it uniformity of worship that is designed by the term ?-Then, this communion exists not in their own Church; for to this day the Maronite Churches in Asia, including very many thousand members, all subject to the Pope and Roman See, have their own ceremonies and rites of worship. "Among them (says a respectable historian,f) there is nothing to be found that savours of Popery, if we except their attachment to the Roman Pontiff." In truth, there is LESS of external and actual communion in worship in Roman Catholic than in Protestant congregations. For in the latter all who really worship, say the same prayers, and perform the same devotions at the same time: whereas, among the former each individual may say those prayers, and perform *Abridgement of Christian Doctrine, p. 17. +See Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv. p. 264. cent. xvi. chap. ii.

those devotions which he or she may most approve; and while the Mass is going on at the altar, a hundred different prayers may be saying by so many worshippers: so that could any one note down the devotions of the members of any Roman Catholic congregation at the same time, from the Priest to each of the worshippers, he would record an infinite variety of forms and modes of prayer; some repeating pater-nosters, or our Fathers, while others are saying aves, or Hail Marys; one making "an act of Faith," while another is repeating "an act of Hope," and another "an act of Contrition:" one reciting, it may be, the Litany of JESUS, and others the Litany of the Virgin; and all saying something different from the service performing at the altar. Some would be found praying to one Saint, some to another, some perhaps to GOD; so that a congregation of 500 or 1000 persons, may be saying at the same time and place, nearly as many different prayers, and may have as many different objects of Latria, or Dulia, i. e. of Supreme or inferior worship. Assuredly, then, Roman Catholics have no right to condemn Protestants as having no external communion in worship among themselves, because they have different forms of prayers, or because some have forms and some not, while there is so great a medley of devotion found among themselves. But if they intend not an unity in all external rites and ceremonies, then in how many and in what? Where do they draw the line? All great Protestant Churches receive the same Sacraments, of Baptism and the Lord's Supper: admit of the same leading parts of public worship, prayer, and praise, and preaching of the word; nor do they differ so much even in external ceremonies as may be thought, seeing that in such as have most of these, they are few and simple. But if this "communion of all holy persons in all holy things," is not in externals, but is an internal and spiritual communion, such as I have already described, then does it not include every one, who by participation of the HOLY GHOST, is made a member of CHRIST'S mystical body, a stone in his Spiritual Temple, an inheritor of Heaven? Then it is a communion to which no one Church has exclusive claims, or a superior claim above other Churches. It is a spiritual, invisible, but actual union. Hereby know we that we dwell in Him,

and He in us, because He hath given us of His SPIRIT-whosoever shall confess that JESUS is the Son of GOD, GOD dwelleth in him, and he in GOD.*

This, then, is the true "Unity" of the True Catholic Church: by which all the Faithful in every age and part of the world, by whatever name distinguished, are knit together into one body: a Unity in essentials; a real Unity as it respects subjection to one Head, agreement in one Faith, and Communion in one Spirit. Whereas, the unity which the Roman Church pretends, of subjection to an earthly head, the Pope, agreement in the belief of things neither taught in Scripture, nor found in ancient confessions of faith, and communion in external rites, is an invention of her own to rivet more strongly those chains of spiritua domination by which she holds her members bound in the prisonhouse of Superstition.

I have dwelt largely on this point of "Unity," because it is what the Romanists regard as their strongest hold against Protestants, with what truth I have endeavoured to show. But,

2nd. HOLINESS is a Token of the true Church. We believe in One Holy Church. The Church is holy (say the Romanists) "because she teaches a holy doctrine, invites all to a holy life, and is distinguished by the eminent holiness of so many thousands of her children." The definition may be correct, but I question its application to the Church of Rome; and certainly it is not applicable to her exclusively. There have been, and I hope are, very many holy persons in her communion: but assuredly not fewer in the Protestant communions. Let the Romanist be satisfied with the former concession, if he will not assent to the latter assertion. I shall be glad if it tends to satisfy him that all Protestant advocates are not so prejudiced, as to deny the existence of real piety in a church, which they must, nevertheless, consider in her spirit and doctrines, hostile to it. But I wish here once for all to observe that we are not setting up Protestantism, in opposition to the Church of Rome, as containing within itself alone the Church of CHRIST. Far from it. The one holy and true Catholic Church, (as I have already *1 John iv. 13-15.

+Abridgement of Christian Doctrine, p. 16.

shown) embraces all of every particular denomination, or Church, who are comprehended therein by its four characteristic marks.

I shall not enter into any discussion of the claims of her canonized Saints to the reputation which the Church of Rome has given them, nor shall I do more than say, that we cannot allow her to claim, as exclusively her own, those holy individuals who adorned the first five or six centuries of the Christian era. We believe the Roman Church as she now is, had no existence at that time; that her corruptions and peculiarities are most of them of a later date, since even towards the close of the sixth century Pope Gregory the Great declared, “ Whosoever claims the universal episcopate is the forerunner of Anti-christ :" and that the Fathers, and Doctors, and Saints and Martyrs, and Confessors of the primitive Church were, in their faith and doctrines what the Church of Rome now calls Protestant Heretics, and were most strictly members of the same Church with ourselves. And these things we undertake to prove, but they fall not within the compass of my subject to night. I shall confine myself to the showing that true Protestants are at least as favourable, in their doctrines and discipline to true holiness as the Roman Catholics, and that therefore the title of " Holy Church" is as applicable to them collectively as it is to the Church of Rome exclusively. Were the latter identical with the "Holy Catholic Church," that for which CHRIST gave himself, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that it might not have spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish, and were indeed so one and the same with this Church, that Protestants as separated from her, are unavoidably schismatics, heretics and profane, then we might justly expect to find a peculiar and marked distinction as to holiness and morality between her members, and these supposed schismatics-and between countries where she alone has influence, and such as are flooded with Protestant heresies, with separatists from a "holy Church," and therefore from that holiness which is to characterize her. Is this the fact? I wish not to enter into odious comparisons: but contrast the most decided Roman Catholic countries such as Italy, Spain, and Portugal, with the most entirely Protestant, such as England, Scotland, or Sweden.