John S. Vaughan

“ Just watch the poor unfortunate man utterly and hopelessly unable to decide whether he is prostrating and pouring out his soul before a mere memorial, a simple piece of common bread, or before the Infinite Creator of the Universe, the dread King of kings, and Lord of lords, in Whose presence the very angels veil their faces, and the strong pillars of heaven tremble! Imagine a Church where such a state of things is possible! Yet, we have it on the authority of an Anglican Bishop—and I know not where we shall find a higher authority—that this is indeed the case ”

“ On the other hand, the Catholic Church, amid a thousand sects, resembles the genuine acorn among the thousand imitations. Not only does she alone possess the whole truth; but she alone can stand up and actually prove this claim to the entire world, by pointing defiantly at her marvellous and miraculous unity—a unity so conspicuous, and so striking, and so absolutely unique, that even the hostile and bigoted Protestant press can sometimes scarcely refrain from bearing an unwilling testimony to it. ”

“ This means, as practical as it is simple, is no other than one supreme central and living authority, enjoying full jurisdiction over all—that is to say, the authority of Peter, ever living in his See, and speaking, now by the lips of Leo, and now by the lips of Pius, but always in the name, and with the authority, and under the guidance of Him who, in the plenitude of His divine power, made Peter the immovable rock, against which the gates of hell may indeed expend their fury, but against which they never have prevailed and never can prevail. "The gates of hell shall not prevail against Thee." ”

“ To deny any truth of religion is wrong and sinful, but it is not necessarily and always heretical. Heresy is not the denial of any kind of truth: it is the denial only of a special form of truth. It is the denial of those truths which have been taught by Jesus Christ and the Apostles. But the King explicitly declares in his letter to the Holy Father that to deny the Pope's spiritual supremacy over all is not only wrong, not only sinful, but that it is to be guilty of the specially horrible sin of heresy. ”

“ The continual persistency of the Papacy, to whom this steadily burning torch of truth has been entrusted, is unquestionably one of the most certain, as it is one of the most startling facts in the whole of history. It stares us full in the face. It arrests the attention of even the least observant. It puzzles the historian. It taxes the explanatory powers of the philosopher, and will remain to the end, a permanent difficulty to the scoffer and to the sceptic, and to all those who have not faith. ”

“ Here, then, is the most influential journal certainly of Great Britain, perhaps of the world, proclaiming to its readers far and wide, not simply that the Roman Catholic Church is one, but that her oneness is of such a sterling quality, and of so pronounced a character that it is impossible—mark the word, impossible!—not to feel it. Yet men ask where the Church of God is to be found. ”

“ The reigning Pontiff, whosoever he may be, is always the Supreme Ruler, the Head of the Church, and the Vicar of Christ; but he is not, on all occasions, nor under all circumstances, the infallible ruler.
To guard against any mistake as to the meaning of our words, let us explain that infallibility is a gift, but not a gift that the Pope exercises every day, nor on every occasion, nor in addressing individuals, nor public audiences, nor is it a prerogative that can be invoked, except under special and indeed we may certainly add, very exceptional circumstances. ”

“ The Church of God can be but one; because God is truth: and, truth can be but one. The world may, and (as a matter of fact) does abound in false Churches, just as it abounds in false deities; but, this is rendered possible only because they are false. Two or more true Churches involve a contradiction in terms. Such a condition of things is as intrinsically absurd, and as unthinkable, as two or more true Gods—as well talk of two or more multiplication tables! No! There can be but "One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism". ”

“ As surely as infallibility is the essential prerogative of a divinely constituted Teaching Church, so surely can it exist only in that institution which alone has always claimed it, both as her gift by promise and the sole explanation of her triumphs and her perpetuity. It would be the idlest of dreams to search for it in a fractional part of a modern community, like the Church of England, which had always disowned and scoffed at it, and which could account for its own existence only on the plea that the Promises of God had signally failed, and that it alone was able to correct the failure. ”

“ Church stands alone, unrecognised by the rest of Christendom; hence the one is absolutely distinct from the other. The grand old cathedrals and churches designed, built, and paid for by our Catholic ancestors have been forcibly taken possession of, but the Faith, the teaching, and the doctrine—in a word, the Church itself—is totally distinct. The wolf may slay and devour the sheep and may then clothe himself in its fleece, but the wolf is not the sheep, and the nature of the one remains totally different from that of the other. ”

“ Why do they assert, and with such emphasis, what no one but they themselves have the hardihood to believe? Why? For precisely the same reason that will induce a drowning man to grasp at a straw. In short, because even if they did not realise it before, they are now beginning to see that their very position depends upon their being able to make out some sort of case for continuity. They realise that to admit that the Church of England began in the sixteenth century is simply to cut the ground from underneath their feet. ”

“ Pride and self still sway men's hearts. The spirit of independence and self-assertion and egotism, in spite of all efforts at repression, continue to stalk abroad. And human nature, even to-day, is almost as impatient of restraint, and as unwilling to bear the yoke of obedience, as in the time when Gregory resisted Henry of Germany, or when Pius VII. excommunicated Napoleon. ”

“ For though no Catholic ever doubted the genuine infallibility of the Church, yet in the early centuries, there existed some difference of opinion, as to where precisely the infallible authority resided. Most Catholics, even then, believed it to be a gift conferred by Christ upon Peter himself [who alone is the rock] , and upon each Pope who succeeded him in his office, personally and individually, but some were of opinion that, not the Pope by himself, but only "the Pope-in-Council," that is to say, the Pope supported by a majority of Bishops, was to be considered infallible. ”

“ It exists for the express purpose of combating error and repressing evil, in whatever form it may appear; and whether it be instigated by the devil, or the world, or the flesh. But, let us ask, Who ever heard of an army without a chief? An army without a supreme commander is an army without subordination and without law or order; or rather, it is not an army at all, but a rabble, a mob.
The supreme head of Christ's army—of Christ's Church upon earth, is our Sovereign Lord the Pope. Some will not accept his rule, and refuse to admit his authority. ”

“ Of course we know that Anglicans are very hard pressed, and in a quandary, and that some allowance must be made for drowning men when they stretch forth their trembling hands to clutch at straws. But really the claim to continuity, however vital to them, should hardly be put forward in the face of such clear and overwhelming evidence of its falsity. The ultimate effects of such vain efforts to prove black to be white can only be to make them ridiculous, and to discredit them in the eyes of honest men. ”

“ We can conceive a man rejecting all revelation. It is possible even to conceive a man denying the Divinity of Christ. But we know nothing that would ever enable us even to conceive that Infinite Wisdom and Infinite Power had established a Church which cannot teach, or had sent an ambassador utterly unable to deliver His message. There is no use for such Church as that. ”

“ Thus we find hundreds of Churches proclaiming themselves to be foundations of God, which Time, the old Justice who tries all such offenders, soon proves, most unmistakably, to be nothing but the contrivances of man. They may bear a certain external resemblance to the true Church, planted by the Divine Husbandman, but like the man-made acorns, they deceive all our expectations, and are wholly unable to redeem their promises, or to live up to their pretensions. ”

“ In fact, it is precisely impartial men, unaffected by any interest either way, who most fully realise from what a very shady beginning the new state of things arose. As Sir Osborne Morgan puts it, "Every student of English history knows that, if a very bad king had not fallen in love with a very pretty woman, and desired to get divorced from his plain and elderly wife, and if he had not compelled a servile Parliament to carry out his wishes, there would, in all human probability, never have been an Established Church at all." ”

“ It would be well if all Catholics took to heart these noble words of the great English Cardinal, who was himself once an Archdeacon in the Anglican Church. Real charity urges us to set forth the truth in all its nakedness and beauty. This must be done, even though it may sometimes give pain and cause irritation. If a man be walking in a trance towards the crumbling edge of some ghastly precipice, who—let me ask—acts with the greater charity, he who is afraid to interfere, and will calmly allow the somnambulist to walk on, till he fall over into the abyss ”

“ The simplest intelligence, if only it will set aside prejudice and pride, and just attend and watch, will be led, without difficulty, to the following conclusions: firstly, without an altogether special divine support, no authority can claim and exercise infallibility in its teaching; and secondly, without such infallibility in its teaching no continuous unity can be maintained among vast multitudes of people, least of all concerning dogmas most abstruse, mysteries most sublime and incomprehensible, and laws and regulations both galling and humiliating to human arrogance and pride. ”

“ It is the sort of vengeance which, under favourable circumstances, the mouse may enjoy at the expense of the elephant. If he can mount high enough by artificial means, the smallest of created things may contrive to look down on the greatest, and to affect to compassionate his want of range. For purposes of controversy, the Anglican could talk of himself as a terrestrial ancient-of-days, and regret the rage for innovation, which led, not, of course, to his separation from Rome, but to Rome's separation from him! ”

“ Thus, the Sovereign Pontiff, as the infallible source of religious truth, becomes at the same time the strong bond of religious unity: for, just as error divides men from one another, so truth always and necessarily draws them together. In this way the Pope becomes the connecting link which unites over 250,000,000 of men: and the foundation stone (or petros—Peter) of the mystical building erected by God-incarnate ("Upon this rock will I build My Church," Matt. xvi. 18) . ”

“ Now, what we wish to know is, how in the world can a man be "the most faithful son of the Church of Rome," so rooted in his loyalty to her that "his allegiance is known to the whole world," and yet not be a Roman Catholic? The Bishops then add that "they go down upon their knees" to beseech the Pope's favour for the Archbishop, and in doing so declare that they are "the most humble sons of your Holiness and of the Roman Church". ”

“ Consequently every member of the Anglican community finds himself, nolens volens, impaled on the horns of a truly frightful dilemma. For either he must frankly confess that his Church is not the Church of God, i.e., not the True Church, which (human nature being what it is) he can hardly be expected to do; or else he must assert that it goes back without any real break to the time of the Apostles; which though absolutely untrue, is the only other alternative. In a word, he finds himself in a very tight corner. ”

“ The "Branch Theory" stands self-condemned, if truth be of any importance: because it is inconsistent with truth. For, if one Church contradicts the other on any single point of doctrine, then one or the other must be false, that is, it must be either asserting what Christ denied; or else denying what Christ asserted. They cannot, under any circumstances, be described as true Churches. This is not sophistry or subtilty. It is common-sense. Christ promised unity in promising truth; since truth is one. ”

“ If ever there was a power on earth who had an eye for the times, who has confined himself to the practicable, and has been happy in his anticipations, whose words have been facts, and whose commands prophecies, such is he, in the history of ages, who sits, from generation to generation, in the chair of the Apostles, as the Vicar of Christ, and the Doctor of His Church. ”

“ The old forms of religious thought are now passing away in England. The rejection of the Divine Voice has let in the flood of opinion; and opinion has generated scepticism; and scepticism has brought on contentions without end. What seemed so solid once, is disintegrated. It is dissolving by the internal action of the principle from which it sprung. The critical unbelief of dogma has now reached to the foundation of Christianity, and to the veracity of Scripture. ”

“ If we examine Our Lord's words and acts, such a Church there is. If we follow the inclinations of our fallen nature, ever averse to the control of authority, we there find the reason why so many who love this world, receive not the authority that He planted, to endure like His primal creation, to the end. ”

“ It is inevitable that if we speak plainly we must give pain and offence to those who will not admit the possibility that they are out of the Faith and the Church of Jesus Christ. But, if we do not speak plainly, woe unto us, for we shall betray our trust and our Master. There is a day coming, when they who have softened down the truth, or have been silent, will have to give account. ”

“ For, while one and all declare with their lips that they possess the truth as revealed by Christ, their glaring divisions, irreconcilable differences, and internal dissensions emphatically prove that the truth is not in them: and that they have been built, not on the rock, but on the shifting sand, and are the erections, not of God, but of feeble, fickle men. ”

“ Thus—to take a simple illustration—in three different councils, the Church has declared and proposed three different articles of Faith, viz., that in Jesus Christ there are (1) two natures, (2) two wills, and (3) one only Person. These may seem to some, who cannot look beneath the surface, to be three entirely new doctrines; to be, in fact, "additions to the creed". In sober truth, they are but expansions of the original doctrine which, in its primitive and revealed form, has been known and taught at all times, that is to say, the doctrine that Christ is, at once, true God and true Man. ”