Ancient Church

“ They never taught nor knew such things as these men madly assert." "But as it would be too long in such a book as this to enumerate the successions of all the Churches, we point to the tradition of the greatest, most ancient Church, known to all, founded and constituted in Rome by the two glorious Apostles Peter and Paul, and to the faith announced to all men, coming down to us by the succession of Bishops, thereby confounding all those who, in any way, by self-pleasing, or vainglory, or blindness, or an evil mind, teach as they ought not. ”

“ For the English Protestant Church, is a modern church, [Pg 62] its language, therefore, should be modern, that its liturgy, may announce to posterity the period, in which it was formed. But the Church of Rome, is an ancient Church, and therefore, she preserves her ancient liturgy, the language of which, remounts to the origin of Christianity. I do not believe, that history, can furnish an instance of a people, who ever changed the language of their liturgy, and who did not, at the same time, change their religion. ”

“ My Lords, you have that true image of the primitive Church in its ancient form, in its ancient ordinances, purified from the superstitions and vices which a long succession of ages will bring upon the best institutions. ”

“ In the different sections of the great Christian community, the vast majority of those that profess Christianity—making up the old Greek Church, sometimes called the Eastern Christian Church, and those who are numbered in the Roman Communion, the Roman Catholic Church, the two ancient Churches which have preserved an unbroken antiquity and an unbroken tradition from the time of Christ and His Apostles—have maintained and maintain, uninjured and complete, the ancient belief in the ministry of angels. ”

“ Thus, while the Church set its face against the old cults, so that only slight traces of these remain, or gave a Christian aspect to popular customs by connecting them with saints' days or sacred places, it was on the whole rather proud than otherwise of the heroes of the past and preserved their memory, together with much of the gracious aspect of the ancient gods. ”

“ I see the Church which God founded on the Apostles and Prophets, its corner-stone being Christ His Son, tossed on an angry sea, beaten by rushing waves, shaken and troubled by the assaults of evil spirits. I see rents in the seamless robe of Christ, which impious men have sought to part asunder, and His body cut into pieces, that is, the word of God and the ancient tradition of the Church. ”

“ We have often told you that the ancient Church was destroyed from the face of the earth—that the authority of the Priesthood of heaven was taken from the earth—that no such thing as a Christian Church, with all its authority and power, as it stood upon the earth in ancient days, has existed for generations and ages that are past. ”

“ The visible Church is composed, to a considerable extent, of very different materials. It embraces the whole mixed multitude of nominal Christians, including not a few who exhibit no evidence whatever of vital godliness. ”

“ We celebrate on this day the foundation of the Catholic Church. For it was on this day that the Holy Ghost came down on the Apostles to bestow those gifts of grace which make the Catholic Church a reality. This descent of the Holy Ghost was the fulfilment of prophecies made by the ancient prophets of the old law, who, under the figures of Sion and Jerusalem, have described the Holy Roman Church, and the universal Church under her obedience, diffused through out the world. ”

“ Though no contemporary writer has furnished us with anything like an ecclesiastical history of this period, it is very clear, from occasional hints thrown out by the early apologists and controversialists, that the progress of the Church must have been both extensive and rapid. ”

“ It brings before our eyes an example of human talent consecrated to the highest ends. And it continues a tradition characteristic of the Christian Church throughout its history—one dating back, indeed, to those more ancient days when, in the language of the Book of Exodus, ‘All the women that were wise-hearted did spin with their hands, and brought that which they had spun, both of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet and of fine linen,’ for use and adornment in the Tabernacle of God. ”

“ In the commencement of the second century the Churches of Rome and Ephesus doubtless possessed as much spiritual enlightenment as any other Churches in the world, and it is a libel upon their Christianity to suppose that they could have listened with any measure of complacency to the senseless ravings to be found even in the recent edition of the Ignatian Letters. ”

“ When the Church towards the middle of the second century was sorely harassed by divisions, its situation was extremely critical and embarrassing. Christianity had appeared among men bearing the olive branch of peace, and had proposed to supersede the countless superstitions of the heathen by a faith which would bind the human race together in one great and harmonious family. ”

“ A church organized precisely upon the pattern of the ancient church, with doctrines precisely similar, varying in no single particular from the doctrines of the ancient church, and these revealed in extraordinary plainness and power by an unlettered youth who had had no chance of education save that which the common schools of the country afforded. ”

“ There is no work that portrays the heroic age of the ancient church with equal spirit, elegance, and incisive power. The author has made thorough and independent study both of the early Christian literature and also of the contemporary records of classic heathenism. ”

“ The Church of Christ, the careful and watchful guardian of the doctrines deposited in her charge, never changes anything in them, never diminishes, never adds; does not cut off what is necessary, does not add what is superfluous, does not lose her own, does not appropriate what is another's, but, while dealing faithfully and judiciously with ancient doctrine, keeps this one object carefully in view—if there be anything which antiquity has left shapeless and rudimentary, to fashion and to polish it; if anything already reduced to shape and developed, to consolidate and strengthen it ”

“ In this period were laid the foundations of the leading ecclesiastical institutions of the Middle Ages, as the Church, although still under the influence of antiquity, adapted itself and its institutions to the changed condition due to the political situation and took up its duty of training the rude peoples that had come within its fold. ”

“ There is necessity for Apostles, Prophets, Teachers, and all the gifts in the Church, and whenever the Church of Christ is organized on the earth it possesses those blessings. Now, referring to this chapter which I have read, if a man had gone out sixty years ago among the Christian sects and denominations in search of the Church of Christ, according to the ancient pattern, would he have found it? ”

“ The version of the Scriptures into their native tongue, which had facilitated their conversion, must excite among their clergy some curiosity to read the original text, to understand the sacred liturgy of the church, and to examine, in the writings of the fathers, the chain of ecclesiastical tradition. These spiritual gifts were preserved in the Greek and Latin languages, which concealed the inestimable monuments of ancient learning. ”

“ This wicked and abominable doctrine was handed down for a great many generations in the Greek and Roman Catholic churches, and will be found throughout all their writings—the writings of their most noted archbishops. They declare that they neither received nor believed in any new revelation; that their rule of faith and practice was ancient Scripture; that the church must be guided by those ancient laws, and by the traditions of their fathers—traditions handed down from the days of the Apostles to their day. Thus you see all communication from the heavens was cut off by their own decree ”

“ It appears that the service of the Church is far more ancient than the Roman missal, properly speaking. And whoever has attended to the superlative simplicity, fervour, and energy of the prayers, will have no hesitation in concluding, that they must, the collects particularly, have been composed in a time of true evangelical light and godliness.—Milner’s Church Hist. ”

“ At all events, our illustrious son will learn from your admonitions,—will learn from the infallible Gospel,—that the most holy Roman Church, built by God's hand on a most firm rock, however much she may be shaken by the winds, will yet endure throughout all ages under the Lord's protection. ”

“ Those proofs of the intrinsic excellence of the Church are as striking and sublime as they have been enduring. Nevertheless, as in the Middle Ages and during the first centuries, so in those nearer our own, we see the Church assailed more harshly, in a certain sense at least, and more distressingly than ever. ”

“ In all Christian churches, indeed, and in none so much as the Church of Rome, nothing is so austere, so elevating, and so grand, as the uncompromising tone in which the great dogmas of the Faith are enunciated and proclaimed. ”

“ It is impossible to study the remains of Christian antiquity without being assured beyond the reach of doubt, that such were the doctrines and practice of the universal Church from the days of the Apostles. ”

“ With temple, tabernacle or altars; without priests or Levites, and almost without ceremonies, it made known at once its character and purpose as spiritual and not carnal, as, in fact, a kingdom of God “not of this world.” Its only authority was
THE WORD OF GOD
We have already seen that the only creed of the primitive Church was the central truth of God’s revelation to man—“Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” The whole New Testament is but an expansion of this thought. ”

“ For since the beginning, when the Word of God came down to us, being made man, all the Churches of the Christians have received one only firm basis and foundation, the great Church that is there (at Rome) , against which, according to the Saviour's promise, the gates of hell shall never prevail, and which holds the keys of the true faith in him, which gives the true and only piety to those who come to her devoutly, which shuts the mouth of all heretics. ”

“ It is the Catholic Church only which retains the true worship. This Church is the fountain of truth, it is the house of faith, it is the temple of God. If any one either comes not into this Church, or departs from it, his eternal salvation is desperate. No one must flatter himself obsti­nately, for his soul and salvation are at stake. ”

“ Latin Christianity, then, represents a distinctively aristocratic type of Christianity, the priest dominating the congregation and not controlled by them, the bishop dominating the priest, the Pope at the summit responsible to none but God. Such fashioning that great Church had received at the hands of men wise to give the Church such organization as the conditions demanded. ”

“ Let the reform come from within the church. The church is something more than either its creeds, its clergy, or its laymen. Look at your cathedral rising out of and dominating Princhester. It stands not simply for Athanasius; it stands but incidentally for Athanasius; it stands for all religion. Within that fabric—let me be as frank here as in our private conversation—doctrine has altered again and again. To-day two distinct religions worship there side by side; one that fades and one that grows brighter. ”

“ The Church is the living Temple of God, into which believers must be builded as so many living stones. It is his Body, and his Body is no more to be dispensed with than his Soul; otherwise we could not call her always visible, for to some she would be visible, to others only invisible, and then there would be no visible Catholic Church. ”

“ What a falling off from the teachings of the original clergy, when bishops were the companions of princes rather than preachers to the poor, and when the clergy could live without the offerings of the people, and were appointed from favor and not from merit. The spiritual mission of the church was lost sight of in a degrading alliance with the state and the world. "Make me bishop of Rome," said a pagan general, "and I too would become a Christian."
[Sidenote: The church conforms to the world.]
[Sidenote: Christianity produces witnesses, but is not all conquering.] ”

“ There were multitudes that believed; even in Jerusalem, where the malignant influence of the chief priests was most strong, there were three thousand converted on one day, and five thousand on another, and, beside those, there were added to the church daily; and, no doubt, they were all baptized, and made profession of the faith; for the same Spirit that endued the apostles with courage to preach the faith of Christ, endued them with courage to confess it. Note, The increase of the church is the glory of it, and the multitude of them that believe, more than their quality. ”

“ You, Holy Father, can arrest all this by making the Church of Rome, Christian rather than Pagan—by removing every touch of idolatry, every recollection of paid prayers, and by teaching a lofty, pure and practical faith such as our Redeemer desired for us, so that it may be a refuge in the storm, a haven wherein all the world shall find peace. ”

“ So we say, Mankind feel and always did feel the necessity of an infallible church, of a distinct, positive, dogmatic faith. Therefore they exist, and always did exist. Only in the Catholic Church are these wants realized; therefore the Catholic Church is the true Church of God. ”

“ Notwithstanding, the disciples of Jesus, excepting John the Revelator, suffered ignominious deaths, they sowed the seed of the Gospel among, and conferred the Priesthood upon men, which remained for several generations upon the earth, but the time came when Paganism was engrafted into Christianity, and at last Christianity was converted into Paganism rather than converting the Pagans. And subsequently the Priesthood was taken from among men, this authority was re-called into the heavens, and the world was left without the Priesthood—without the power of God—without the Church and Kingdom of God. ”