Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/351

 Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ (Matt. xxiii. 8-10).

This very verse, these words, which are said directly against those who call themselves teachers, fathers, and masters,—this verse is connected with the verse (Luke x. 16), which has absolutely nothing in common with the first, and is adduced as a proof that those very teachers, who call themselves so against the command of Christ, have Christ as their head. After that follow proofs that (Art. 177) the church is One, (179) Holy, (180) Catholic and Universal, and (181) Apostolic.

In Division III., about the Universal Church, it says:

“III. The special privilege of the Catholic, or Universal, Church consists in this, that in matters of faith ‘it cannot err in any way, nor deceive, nor be deceived; but, like Divine Scripture, it is infallible and has eternal dignity’ (Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs, Section 12), a privilege of which enough has been said by us in the proper place.”

The moral application of this dogma for the first time results directly from the dogma. The application of the dogma consists in obeying the church.

“(1) The Lord Jesus founded his church that it might regenerate men and educate them for eternal life; and so our relation to it has to be that of children to their mother; we are obliged to love the church of Christ as our spiritual mother and to obey it in everything as our spiritual mother. In particular our Lord Jesus: (2) enjoined the church to keep and teach to men its divine doctrine; it is our duty to receive this teaching from the mouth of the God-given church, and to understand it precisely as the church, which is instructed by the Holy Ghost, understands it; (3) he entrusted to the church the performance of mysteries and, in general, sacraments for the sanctification of men; it is our duty in awe to make use of the saving mysteries and all the other sacraments, which it performs over us; (4) he entrusted the church