CHURCH
758
CHURCH
The union of different nations in one society is
contrary to the natural inclinations of fallen human-
ity. It must ever struggle against the impulses of
national pride, the desire for complete independence,
the dislike of external control. Hence history pro-
vides various cases in which these passions have
obtained the upper hand, the bond of unity has been
broken, and "National Churches" have been formed.
In every such case the so-called National Church
has found to its cost that, in severing its connexion
with the Holy See, it has lost its one protector against
the encroachments of the secular Government. The
Greek Church under the Byzantine Empire, the
autocephalous Russian Church to-day, have been
mere pawns in the hands of the civil authority. The
history of the Anglican Church presents the same
features. There is but one institution which is able
to resist the pressure of secular powers — the See of
Peter, which was set in the Church for this purpose
by Christ, that it might afford a principle of stability
and security to every part. The papacy is above all
nationalities. It is the servant of no particular
State; and hence it has strength to resist the forces
that would make the religion of Christ subservient
to secular ends. Those Churches alone have re-
tained their vitality which have kept their union
with the See of Peter. The branches which have
been broken from that stem have withered.
Branch Theory. — In the course of the nineteenth century, the principle of National Churches was strenuously defended by the High Church Anglican divines under the name of the "Branch theory". According to this view, each National Church when fully constituted under its own episcopate is inde- pendent of external control. It possesses plenary authority as to its internal discipline, and may not merely reform itself as regards ritual and ceremonial usages, but may correct obvious abuses in matters of doctrine. It is justified in doing this even if the step involve a breach of communion with the rest of Christendom; for, in this case, the blame attaches not to the Church which undertakes the work of reformation, but to those which, on this score, reject it from communion. It still remains a "branch" of the Catholic Church as it was before. At the present day the Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Greek Churches are each of them a branch of the Universal Church. None of them has an exclusive right to term itself the Catholic Church. The de- fenders of the theory recognize, indeed, that this divided state of the Church is abnormal. They admit that the Fathers never contemplated the pos- sibility of a Church thus severed into parts. But they assert that circumstances such as those which led to this abnormal state of things never presented themselves during the early centuries of ecclesiastical history.
The position is open to fatal objections. (1) It is an entirely novel theory as to the constitution of the Church, which is rejected alike by the Catholic and the Greek Churches. Neither of these admit the ttistence of the so-called branches of the Church. I he Greek schismatics, no less than the Catholics, affirm that they, and they only, constitute the Church. Further, the theory is rejected by the majority of the Anglican body. It is the tend of but one school, though that a distinguished one. ll is almost a reductio ml absurdum when we arc asked i" bi lieve that a single school in a particular sect is the ■sole depositary of the true theory of the Chinch.
(2) The claim made by many Anglicans that there is nothing in their position contrary to ecclesiastical and patristic tradition in quite indefensible. Argu- ments precisely applicable to their case were used by
the Fathers against the Donatists. It is known from
(he "Apologia" that Cardinal Wiseman's masterly demonstration of this point was one of the chief
factors in bringing about the conversion of Newman.
In the controversy with the Donatists, St. Augustine
holds it sufficient for his purpose to argue that those
who are separated from the Universal Church cannot
be in the right. He makes the question one of
simple fact. Are the Donatists separated from the
main body of Christians, or are they not? If they
are, no vindication of their cause can absolve them
from the charge of schism. "Securus judicat orbis
terrarum bonos non esse qui se dividunt ab orbe
terrarum in quacunque parte orbis terrarum" (The
entire world judges with security that they are not
good, who separate themselves from the entire
world in whatever part of the entire world — Augus-
tine, contra epist. Parm., Ill, c. iv in P. L., XLIII,
101). St. Augustine's position rests throughout on
the doctrine he assumes as absolutely indubitable,
that Christ's Church must be one, must be visibly
one; and that any body that is separated from it is
ipso facto shown to be in schism.
The contention of the Anglican controversialists that the English Church is not separatist since it did not reject the* communion of Rome, but Rome re- jected it, has of course only the value of a piece of special pleading, and need not be taken as a serious argument. Yet it is interesting to observe that in this too they were anticipated by the Donatists (Contra epist. Petil., II, xxxviii in P. L., XLIII, 292). (3) The consequences of the doctrine constitute a mani- fest proof of its falsity. The unity of the Catholic Church in every part of the world is, as already seen, the sign of the brotherhood which binds together the children of God. More than this, Christ Himself declared that it would be a proof to all men of His Divine mission. The unity of His flock, an earthly representation of the unity of the Father and the Son, would be sufficient to show that He had come from God (John, xvii, 21). Contrariwise, this theory, first advanced to justify a state of things having Henry VIII as its author, would make the Christian Church, not a witness to the brotherhood of God's children, but a standing proof that even the Son of God had failed to withstand the spirit of dis- cord amongst men. Were the theory true, so far from the unity of the Church testifying to the Divine mission of Jesus Christ, its severed and broken con- dition would be a potent argument in the hands of unbelief.
XII. Notes of the Church. — By the notes of the Church are meant certain conspicuous character- istics which distinguish it from all other bodies and prove it to be the one society of Jesus Christ. Some such distinguishing marks it needs must have, if it is, indeed, the sole depositary of the blessings of redemp- tion, the way of salvation offered by God to man. A Babel of religious organizations all proclaim them- selves to be the Church of Christ. Their doctrines are eontratlietory; and precisely in so far as any one of them regards the doctrines which it teaches as of vital moment, it declares those of the rival bodies to be misleading and pernicious. Unless the true Church were endowed with such characteristics as would prove to all men that it, ami it alone, had a right to the name, how could the vast majority of mankind distinguish the revelation of God from the inventions of man? If it could not authenticate its claim, it would be impossible for it to warn all men that to reject it was to reject Christ. In discussing the visibility of the Church (VII) it was seen that the Catholic Church points to four such notes those namely which were inserted in the Xieenc Creed at the Council of Constantinople (a. D. MSI). Unity. Sanctity, Catholicity, and Apostolicity. These, it de- clares, distinguish it from every other body, and prove that in it alone is to be found the true religion. Each of these characteristics forms tin' subject of a special article in this work. 1 [ere, however, will be indicated
