Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 3.djvu/837

 CHURCH

753

CHURCH

primary purpose of those actual graces which God bestows upon those outside the Church is to draw them within the fold. Thus, even in the case in which < "id saves men apart from the Church, He does so through the Church's graces. They are joined to the Church in spiritual communion, though not in visible and external communion. In the expression of theologians, they belong to the soul of the Church. though not to its body. Yet the possibility of salvation apart from visible communion with the Church must not blind us to the loss suffered by those who are thus situated. They are cut off from the sacraments God has given as the support of the soul. In the ordinary channels of grace, which are ever open to the faithful Catholic, they cannot par- ticipate. Countless means of sanctification which the Church offers are denied to them. It is often urged that this is a stern and narrow doctrine. The reply to this objection is that the doctrine is stern, but only in the sense in which sternness is inseparable from love. It is the same sternness which we find in Christ's words, when he said: "If you believe not that I am he, you shall die in your sin" (John, viii, 24). The Church is animated with the spirit of Christ; she is filled with the same love for souls, the same desire for their salvation. Since, then, she knows that the way of salvation is through union with her, that in her and in her alone are stored the benefits of the Passion, she must needs be uncom- promising and even stern in the assertion of her claims. To fail here would be to fail in the duty entrusted to her by her Lord. Even where the message is unwelcome, she must deliver it.

It is instructive to observe that this doctrine has been proclaimed at every period of the Church's history, l! is no accretion of a later age. The earliest successors of the Apostles speak as plainly as the medieval theologians, and the medieval theolo nans are not more emphatic than those of to-day. From the first century to the twentieth there is absolute unanimity. St. Ignatius of Antioch writes: "Be not deceived, my brethren. If any man follow- • tli on,- that maketh schism, he doth not inherit the kingdom of God. If any one walketh in strange doctrine, he hath no fellowship with the Passion" i.ad I'liilad., n. 3). Origen says: "Let no man de- ceive himself. Outside this house, i. e. outside the ( Ihurch, none i- saved" (Horn, in Jos., iii, n. 5 in P. (!.. XII. Mli St. Cyprian speaks to the same effect: " He cannot have God for his father, who has not the Church for his mother" (De Unit., c. vi). The words of the Fourth CEcumenical Council of Lateran (121.5) define the doctrine thus in its decree against the Albigenses: "Una est fidelium universalii I clesia, extra quam nullus omnino salvatur" (Den- zinger, n. 357); and Pius IX employed almost identi- cal language in his Encyclical to the bishops of Italy Hi August, 1863): "Notissimum est catholicum i neminem scilicet extra catholicam ecclesiam posse salvari" (Denzinger, n. 1529).

VII. Visibility of the Church. — In asserting that the Church of Christ is visible, we signify, first, that as a society it will at all times be conspicuous and public, and second, that it will ever be recogniz- able among other bodies as the Church of Christ.

These two aspects of visibility are termed respectively

"material" and "formal'' visibility by Catholic theologians. The material visibility of the Church involves no more than that it must ever be a public,

not a private profession; a society manifest to the world, not a body whose members are bound by Be. Formal visibility i- more than this. It implies that in all ages the true Church of Christ will be easily recognizable for that which it is. viz. as the Divine society of the Son of God, the i of salvation offered by God to men; that it po certain attributes which, so evidently postulate a III. — 48

Divine origin that all who see it must know it comes from God. This must, of course, be understood with some necessary qualifications. The power to recognize the Church for what it is presupposes certain moral dispositions. Where there is a rooted unwillingness to follow God's will, there may be spiritual blindness to the claims of the Church. In- vincible prejudice or inherited assumptions may produce the same result. But in such cases the incapacity to see is due, not to the want of visibility in the Church, but to the blindness of the individual. The case bears an almost exact analogy to the evi- dence possessed by the proofs for the existence of God. The proofs in themselves are evident : but they may fail to penetrate a mind obscured by preju- dice or ill will. From the time of the Reformation, Protestant writers either denied the visibility of the Church, or so explained it as to rob it of most of its meaning. After briefly indicating the grounds of the Catholic doctrine, some views prevalent on this subject among Protestant authorities will be noticed.

It is unnecessary to say more in regard to the material visibility of the Church than has been said in sections III and IV of this article. It has been shown there that Christ established His Chinch as an organized society under accredited leaders, and that He commanded its rulers and those who should succeed them to summon all men to secure their eternal salvation by entry into it. It is manifest that there is no question here of a secret union of believers: the Church is a world-wide corporation, whose existence is to be forced upon the notice of all, willing or unwilling. Formal visibility is secured by those attributes which are usually termed the "notes" of the Church — her Unity, Sanctity, Catho- licity, and Apostolicity (see below). The proof may be illustrated in the case of the first of these. The unity of the Church stands out as a fact altogether unparalleled in human history. Her members all over the world are united by the profession of a com- mon faith, by participation in a common worship, and by obedience to a common authority. Differ- ences of class, of nationality, and of race, which seem as though they must be fatal to any form of union, cannot sever this bond. It links in one the civilized and the uncivilized, the philosopher and the peasant, the rich and the poor. One and all hold the same belief, join in the same religious ceremonies, and acknowledge in the successor of Peter the same supreme ruler. Nothing but a supernatural power can explain this. It is a proof manifest to all minds, even to the simple and the unlettered, that the Church is a Divine society. Without this formal visibility, the purpose for which the Church was founded would be frustrated. Christ established it to be the means of salvation for all mankind. For this end it is essential that its claims should be authen- ticated in a manner evident to all; in other words, it must be visible, not merely as other public societies are visible, but as being the society of the Son of God.

The views taken by Protestants as to the visibility of the Church are various. The rationalist critics naturally reject the whole conception. To them the religion preached by Jesus Christ was something purely internal. When the Church as an institution came to be regarded as an indispensable factor in religion, it was a corruption of the primitive message. (See Bamack, What i-. Christianity, p. 213.) Pas- (vhich deal with the Church in her corporate unity are referred by writers of this school to an deal invisible Church, a mystical communion of souls. Such an interpretation does violence t,> the sense of the passages. Moreover, no explanation possessing

any semblance of probability has yet been given to account for the genesis among (he disciples of this remarkable and altogether novel conception of an in- visible Church. It may reasonably be demanded of