T. W. Allies

“ I should even be compelled to give up the strongest individual conviction, acknowledging the weakness and liability to err of any private judgment; acknowledging, moreover, that a single province of the Church, if opposed to all the rest, is certain to be in error, were it not that, besides the voice of antiquity, we have witnesses the most legitimate, the most time-honoured, the most unswerving in their testimony,—witnesses who take away from our opponents their proudest claim,—nay, a claim which, if real, would be irresistible,—that of being, by themselves, the Catholic Church. ”

“ Then am I truly honoured, when the true honour is not denied to each one in his degree. For if your Holiness calls me Universal Pope, you deny that you are yourself what you admit me to be, Universal. But this God forbid. Away with words which inflate vanity, and wound charity. Indeed, in the holy Synod of Chalcedon, and by the Fathers subsequently, your Holiness knows this was offered to my predecessors. Yet none of them chose ever to use this term; that, while in this world they entertained affection for the honour of all Priests, in the hands of Almighty God they might guard their own. ”

“ Let it only be remembered, that I quote no German rationalist, no one who denies either the doctrine or hierarchy of the Church; but a Catholic prelate, the most strenuous defender of the faith, and one who, in the great assembly of his brethren, cried out, "If I forget thee, Church of Rome, may I forget myself; may my tongue dry, and remain motionless in my mouth, if thou art not always the first in my remembrance, if I place thee not at the beginning of all my songs of joy." ”

“ This vicar of God, this supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church, this Father of kings and of nations, this successor of the fisherman Peter, he lives, he raises among men his brow, charged with a triple crown, and the sacred weight of eighteen centuries; the ambassadors of nations are at his court: he sends forth his ministers to every creature, and even to places which have not yet a name. ”

“ Let it never, then, be forgotten, that any argument which would prove the Church of England to be in schism would condemn likewise the Eastern and Russian Church. It is not the Catholic Church against a revolted province, as our adversaries would have us believe; it is the one Patriarch of the West, with his Bishops, against the four Patriarchs of the East, with theirs, and that great and, as yet, unbroken phalanx of the North, which Constantinople won to the faith of old, and which now promises to beat back the tide of heresy and infidelity from the beleaguered Sees of the East. ”

“ Let us begin to pray for each other, and we must end by being one. Let us, too, pray that the clouds of error and prejudice, the intense blind jealousy on one side, the cruel and disingenuous temper on the other, may be subdued by the Spirit of God, who in some great and blessed Pentecost shall draw long alienated hearts together, and mould them into a union closer than has ever been, against an attack the last and most terrible of the foretold enemy, the tokens of whose coming are at hand. ”

“ Can a claim be true which is driven to shifts such as this for its maintenance? Or can the truth of Christianity and the unity of the Church rest upon a falsehood? Is infidelity itself in such "a hopeful position," [164] as regards Christianity, that it is really come to this, that we must either receive a plain and manifest usurpation, or be cast out of the house and kingdom of God? That we must reject the witness and history of the first six hundred years of the Church's life on the one hand, or be plunged into the abyss of infidelity on the other? ”

“ When from the windows of his palace he gazes abroad, his sight discovers the most illustrious horizon in the world, the earth trodden by the Romans, the city they had built with the spoils of the universe, the centre of things under their two principal forms, matter and spirit: where all nations have passed; all glories have come: all cultivated imaginations have at least made a pilgrimage from far: Rome, the tomb of Martyrs and Apostles, the home of all recollections. ”

“ Let us go back to the first period at which the universal Church, emerging from the fires of persecution, is found acting as one body. United, indeed, it had ever been from the day of Pentecost, in charity, in doctrine, in sacraments, in communion. The Christian people, scattered throughout the wide precincts of the Roman empire, and speaking its various tongues, was one in heart and spirit—"A peculiar people," like none other: the Bread which they ate, and the Cup which they drank, made them One living Body. ”

“ If, however, there be any question in which perfect candour is requisite, it is surely this of schism. Would it not be a most miserable success to be able to deceive oneself, or others, as to whether one is or is not within the covenant of salvation? The special pleader in such a case is surely the most unhappy of all men; for he deprives himself of the greatest of blessings. He seems to win his cause, while he most thoroughly loses it; for if a man be indeed out of the ark of Christ's Church, what benefit can one possibly render him equal to that of bringing him within it? ”

“ Those who have followed with anxious sympathy that great restorative movement which, for twelve years, has agitated her bosom,—those who have felt with an ever increasing conviction, as time went on, and the different parties consolidated and unfolded themselves, that it was at the bottom a contest for the ancient faith delivered to the saints, for dogmatic truth, for a visible Church, in whom, as in a great sacrament, was lodged the presence of the Lord, communicating Himself by a thousand acts of spiritual efficacy, against the monstrous and shapeless latitudinarianism of the day ”

“ For no one of us sets himself up to be a Bishop of Bishops, or by fear of his tyranny compels his colleagues to the necessity of obedience, since every Bishop according to his recognised liberty and power possesses a free choice, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another. But let us all await the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who singly and alone has the power both of setting us up in the government of His Church, and of judging our proceedings. ”

“ He cannot be a martyr who is not in the Church; he can never attain to the kingdom, who leaves her with whom the kingdom shall be." "A man of such sort may indeed be killed, crowned he cannot be." Therefore the charge of Schism, when once brought before the reflecting mind, cannot be turned aside,—it must be met and answered: if it is not answered, at least to the conviction of the individual, it leaves upon the whole of his obedience the stain of insincerity, which is fatal. In this respect it is more pressing and imperious, more fatal, even than that of heresy. ”

“ But thou art worse than all heretics; for whilst many, acknowledging their error, come to thee thence to receive the true light of the Church, thou assistest the errors of those so coming.... Nor understandest that their souls will be demanded at thy hand, when the day of judgment is come, who to the thirsting hast denied the Church's draught, and hast been the cause of death to those who would live. And moreover thou art indignant! See with what ignorance thou venturest to censure those who strive for the truth against falsehood. ”

“ Independence annihilates membership and coherence. Accordingly, I am fully prepared to admit that the Primacy of the Roman See, even among the Patriarchs, was a real thing; not a mere title of honour. The power of the First See was really exerted in difficult conjunctures to keep the whole body together. I am quite aware that the Bishop of Rome could do, what the Bishop of Alexandria, or of Antioch, or of Constantinople, or of Jerusalem, could not do. Even merely as standing at the head of the whole West he counterbalanced all the four. ”

“ Surely Peter, the first of the Apostles, a member of the holy universal Church, Paul, Andrew, John, what else are they but the heads of particular communities? and yet all are members under one head. And to comprehend all in one brief expression, the saints before the law, the saints under the law, the saints under grace, all these making up the body of the Lord, are disposed among members of the Church, and no one ever wished to be called Universal. ”

“ For who had most right to be angry at another; he who supports the enemies of God, or he who argues for the truth of the Church against him who supports God's enemies? except that it is evident that the ignorant are also passionate and wrathful, whilst, through lack of wisdom and discourse, they readily betake themselves to passion, so that it is of none other than thee that Holy Scripture says, 'The passionate man prepares quarrels, and the wrathful man heaps up sins;' for what quarrels and dissensions hast thou caused through the Churches of the whole world! ”

“ No instructed Christian, who has any true faith or love, can bear the thought that he is out of the one fold of Christ. The question cannot be put off, for it will brood upon him in his daily devotions and labours; a doubt as to the justice of his cause will paralyse all his exertions. It cannot be thrust aside; for the imputation of heresy on another has no tendency to answer the charge of schism against oneself. ”

“ Leo set on a watch-tower, and directing his gaze over the whole Church: over his own West more especially, but over the East too, if need be. He can judge Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople, as well as Eugubium, and is as ready too. Wherever Canons are broken, ancient custom disregarded, encroachments attempted, where Bishops are neglectful, or Metropolitans tyrannical, where heresy is imputed to Patriarchs, in short, wherever a stone in the whole sacred building is being loosened, or threatens to fall, there is he at hand to repair and restore, to warn, to protect, or to punish. ”

“ God forbid that they who profess to be members of the One holy Catholic Church should, urged by any unhappiness of their provisional and strange position, take up Satanic and Antichristian arms. No! if we may not hope for that system under which Augustin and Chrysostom laboured and witnessed, we will have nothing to do with those who destroy dogmatic faith altogether, and break up the visible unity of the Church of Christ into a multitude of atoms. ”

“ For the privileges of the Churches, instituted by the Canons of the holy Fathers, and fixed by the decrees of the venerable Nicene Synod, cannot be plucked up by any wickedness, or changed by any innovation. In the faithful execution of which work, by the help of Christ, I am bound to show persevering service; since the dispensation has been entrusted to me, and it tends to my guilt, if the rules of the Fathers' sanctions, which were made in the Nicene Council for the government of the whole Church, by the teaching of God's Spirit, be violated, which God forbid, by my connivance ”

“ The charge of Schism touches immediately the Christian's conscience, for this reason, that, if true, it takes away from his prayers, his motives, his actions, his sufferings, that one quality which is acceptable to Almighty God. Here it is most true, that "all, which is not of faith, is sin:" he who does not believe, at least, that he is a member of the one Church, whatever outward acts he may perform, cannot please his Judge. ”

“ Stand firm, stand fearless; presume not ever either to give or receive letters with this false title of Universal. Keep from the pollution of this pride all the Bishops subject to your care, that the whole Church may recognise you for Patriarchs, not only by good works, but by your genuine authority. But if perchance adversity follow, persisting with one mind, we are bound to show, even by dying, that we love not any special gain of our own to the general loss. ”

“ Would it not have seemed to him by far the greatest marvel at Rome, as it has to a late eloquent partisan, that Providence has placed "in the middle of the world, to be there the chief of a religion without its like, and of a society spread everywhere, a man without defence, an old man who will be the more threatened, the more the increase of the Church in the world shall augment the jealousy of princes, and the hatred of his enemies." ”

“ For the rest, whoever desires you to delegate any of your clergy to execute your orders, we beseech you not to comply, lest it seem that we are introducing the pride of secular dominion into the Church of Christ, which ought to exhibit to all men an example of simplicity and humility. For as to our brother Faustinus, since the wretched Apiarius is cut off from the Church, we depend confidently on your goodness, that, without violating brotherly charity, Africa shall be no longer forced to endure him. Such is the letter of the Council of Africa to Pope St. Cœlestine. ”

“ But if any one has so invaded a Province and brought it by force under himself, he shall restore it, that the Canons of the Fathers may not be transgressed, nor the pride of secular dominion be privily introduced under the appearance of a sacred office, nor we lose by little the freedom which our Lord Jesus Christ, the deliverer of all men, has given us by His own blood. ”

“ It must be said publicly that such a course will lead infallibly to a schism, which will bury the Church of England in its ruins. If she is to become a mere lurking-place for omnigenous latitudinarianism; if first principles of the faith, such as baptismal regeneration, and priestly absolution, may be indifferently held or denied within her pale,—though, if not God's very truths, they are most fearful blasphemies,—the sooner she is swept away the better. ”