Apostolic Church

“ How contrary is this doctrine to the Catholic dogma of the full power divinely given to the sovereign Pontiff by our Lord Jesus Christ, to guide, to supervise, and govern the universal church, no one can fail to see and understand clearly and evidently. Amid so great a diversity of depraved opinions, we, remembering our apostolic duty, and solicitous before all things for our most holy religion, for sound doctrine, for the salvation of the souls confided to us, and for the welfare of human society itself, have considered the moment opportune to raise anew our apostolic voice. ”

“ The important fact is that the church which claims for its centre the apostolic see, does challenge faith just as an apostle did, or as the whole apostolic college did; that she is apostolic, not merely by having the succession, but by using the authority, and by acting just as she must act if, as she affirms, the whole college, in union with Peter, lived on in her. She too claims all and gives all. ”

“ Just as, therefore, a true Christian is one who follows Christ in his life, so a truly apostolic man is the priest who follows the teaching of the apostles, living the life of an apostle and teaching his doctrine. Hence, any pope is to be called apostolic so far as he teaches the doctrine of the apostles and follows them in works. But, if he puts the teaching of the apostles aside, teaching in word or works what is contrary, then he is properly called pseudo-apostolic or an apostate. ”

“ While rejecting the ritual theory of the Church, she has never been careless of the true succession of faith and doctrine and practice from the time of the Apostles to the present day, a succession to which she lays a not unworthy claim; and, claiming loyalty to Apostolic doctrine, polity and practice, she has ever been jealous in asserting her Divine right, as an Apostolic Church, to the controlling presence and guiding wisdom of the Holy Spirit of God. ”

“ We believe, as the Apostolic Church does, in the only unbegotten Father, who derived his existence from no one, and is immutable and unalterable, always the same and uniform, unsusceptible of increase of diminution ”

“ The apostles, or their immediate disciples, had founded congregations in most of the great cities of the Empire; and every society thus instituted, now distinguished by the designation of the principal [564:2] or apostolic Church, became a centre of ecclesiastical unity. Its presiding minister sent the Eucharist to the teachers of the little flocks in his vicinity, to signify that he acknowledged them as brethren; [564:3] and every pastor who thus enjoyed communion with the principal Church was recognized as a Catholic bishop. ”

“ Is Achaia near to you? You have Corinth. If you are not far from Macedonia, you have Philippi, you have the Thessalonians. [565:2] If you can travel into Asia, you have Ephesus. But if you are near to Italy you have Rome, where we also have an authority close at hand." [565:3]
But the Catholic system was not yet complete. In every congregation the bishop or pastor was the centre of unity, and in every district the principal or apostolic Church bound together the smaller Christian societies; but how were the apostolic Churches themselves to be united? ”

“ We declare, in the two creeds, that we believe in only one catholic and apostolic church, and it does not belong to each individual member to believe everything that comes into his head according to his fancy ”

“ Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."—Matthew 28:19,20. Were these sayings to us in this generation or were they to the apostles only? No doubt they were to the Apostles, and to none else. All will admit that the Apostolic church has fled into the wilderness, and if so, has their authority not fled with them?
Where shall we go to get authority to proclaim the gospel? one would readily exclaim go to God, but here is a difficulty, God does not reveal himself to us. ”

“ When all our bishops become distinguished for their meekness and simplicity, for the fervour of their love, their spirit of evangelical piety, and their unquenchable zeal to exalt Christ, and rescue dying sinners from the iron grasp of the god of this world, we shall then indeed see a return of primitive days, and evidences of a truly apostolic church. ”

“ The true apostolic church has been largely lost to view since the early Christian centuries, when a general apostasy dimmed the light of truth and plunged the world into the darkness of papal night. In modern times the term "church" as applied to a general body of religious worshipers is usually employed in a restricted sense, specifying some particular organization, as the hierarchy of Rome or the aggregation of local congregations constituting a Protestant sect. ”

“ What makes a church, according to the apostolic constitution? All churches which have that constitution agree that the essentials of a church are a bishop with a clergy and laity in his communion. The bishop is its nucleus, and makes the church in the sense in which the head makes the body. A bishopless church is a headless body. We say this is what all Christians agree upon who believe in apostolical succession. So that even the recent contemptible sect calling themselves “Old Catholics” were bound to procure a bishop for their schism, albeit they set at defiance both authority and logic. ”

“ Hence, it is evident that the universal holy church is Christ's one and only bride, the virgin to be in the end most chaste, whom the Son of God bound to himself in matrimony out of eternal love and by the grace of adoption, and the church we firmly believe, saying with the Creed, "I believe one holy catholic church," and about which the word is added in the second Creed, "and apostolic [church] ." ”

“ It would have been so, for a long time now, if the Church of Christ had followed better the precept and also the example of St Paul. Had the apostolic missions been sustained more adequately throughout Christian history, and had the apostolic Gospel been better maintained in the Church in all the energy of its divine simplicity and fulness, the globe would have been covered—not indeed in a hurry, yet ages ago now—with the knowledge of Jesus Christ as Fact, as Truth, as Life. ”

“ If it be a fact capable of proof, and which was believed by all Christians for 1500 years, That there was a true Succession of Ministers from the Apostles—are we not taking the very surest ground against Romanists, when we show, that we possess just such a descended p. 85Ministry, in no degree dependent on communion with their Church, or any other single Church? If we could not show such a Ministry, then the man, who from examination found out the truth of the necessity of an Apostolic Church, might be obliged indeed to resort to the communion of Rome. ”

“ IRENÆUS, L. C. “The Apostolic Faith, manifested to the whole world, they, who would behold truth, may see in every Church ; and we can enumerate those Bishops who were appointed by the Apostles and their successors, down to ourselves; none of whom taught, or even knew, the wild opinions of these men (heretics) . Had the Apostles really possessed any secret doctrines, which the perfect only were to hear, surely they would have communicated them to those to whom they entrusted their Churches. ”

“ The apostolic courage with which the Catholic bishops, not fearing temporal loss, not even imprisonment and exile, defend the rights of God and of his holy church, as also the inalienable rights of Catholic conscience, and the priestly fidelity and firmness with which the Catholic clergy, not led astray by illusions and threats, remain true to the episcopate and the church, deserve the admiration and respect of all Catholics and of every right thinking man. ”

“ Since the Apostolic age seventeen centuries have rolled away— exactly eighteen hundred years have elapsed since the delivery of Christ's recorded promise; and, blessed be God, the Church is with us still. Amid all the political storms and vicissitudes, amid all the religious errors and corruptions which have chequered, during that long period, the world's eventful history, a regular unbroken succession has preserved among us ministers of God, whose authority to confer the gifts of His Spirit is derived originally from the laying on of the hands of the Apostles themselves. ”

“ For instance—The Church has ever maintained that Baptism in the Apostolic community conveys the most exalted and unearthly blessings, and by consequence maintains, that the unbaptized possess them not. But is it not a fact, that all such persons totally reject the notion of there being any spiritual value in Baptism? Does our uncharitableness then place them in a worse position than that which they voluntarily choose for themselves, and resolutely defend? Surely we are rather taking a high view of our own privileges and grace in Christ, than in any degree depriving others of theirs. ”

“ The prayers of apostolic, saintly leaders do much in making saints of those who are not apostles. If the Church leaders in after years had been as particular and fervent in praying for their people as the apostles were, the sad, dark times of worldliness and apostasy had not marred the history and eclipsed the glory and arrested the advance of the Church. Apostolic praying makes apostolic saints and keeps apostolic times of purity and power in the Church. ”

“ Public concerns, ecclesiastical or civil, will prove indeed ruinous to those who permit them to occupy all their care and thought, neglecting or undervaluing ordinary duties, more especially those of a devotional kind. These cautions being duly observed, I do not see how any person can devote himself too entirely to the cause of the Apostolic Church in these realms. ”

“ Hence, he of Lincoln in his letters to the pope thus writes: "The apostolic see to which is given authority by the holiest of the holies, Jesus Christ, the apostle bearing witness, for building up and not for casting down, cannot commit schism." And further on he says: "For this reason your Discretion cannot ordain anything hard against me, because all my words and all my actions are not a gainsaying or a rebellion, but a filial honoring due to the father and mother, that is, Christ and the church, because it is the keeping of a divine command. ”

“ Then why, I would ask, do we not pay Divine Worship to the Church? for the Church certainly is "His Body, His Flesh, and His Bones." Nay, why do we not worship the individual communicant? for he, certainly, has received not only Christ's Body, but Christ's very Self, to dwell within him. The truth is, that inferences, in matters of this mysterious nature, are perfectly untrustworthy, unless supported and countersigned by apostolic practice.
I am aware that this doctrine has been embraced, of late years, by some of the most devout and eminent of our divines. ”

“ Let those therefore who seek salvation come to the pillar and support of the Truth, which is the Church,—let them come, that is, to the true Church of Christ, which possesses in its bishops and the supreme head of all, the Roman Pontiff, a never-interrupted succession of Apostolic authority, and which for nothing has ever been more zealous than to preach, and with all care preserve and defend, the doctrine announced as the mandate of Christ by his Apostles ”

“ For, indeed, if the Church is to be rightly perpetuated under the conditions of a normal growth, it can only be perpetuated according to the original and organic law of its existence. When He to Whom in His resurrection "all power was given in heaven and in earth," committed to the Apostolic Ministry the tradition of the Apostolic Doctrine, in that great baptismal formula which is alike the source and summary of the Catholic Faith, He joined two things together that man may never put asunder. ”

“ MOREOVER, that the supreme power of teaching (magisterii) is also included in the apostolic primacy, which the Roman Pontiff, as the successor of Peter, Prince of the Apostles, possesses over the whole Church, this Holy See has always held, the perpetual practice of the Church confirms, and Œcumenical Councils also have declared, especially those in which the East with the West met in the union of faith and charity. ”

“ Good prelates, they held, who led apostolic lives, were to be obeyed, and to them alone was granted the power to bind and loose—which was striking a mortal blow at the whole organization of the Church. Merit, and not ordination, conferred the power to consecrate and bless, to bind and to loose; every one, therefore, who led an apostolic life had this power, and as they assumed that they all led such a life, it followed that they, although laymen, could execute all the functions of the priesthood. ”

“ But since the apostolic chair is elevated above all the churches of the earth, and thus can have no metropolitan over it, the cardinal bishops perform beyond a doubt the functions of that metropolitan, when, namely, they raise their chosen pope to the apex of apostolic glory. They shall make their choice, moreover, from the lap of this (Roman) church itself, if a suitable man is to be found there. But if not, one shall be chosen from another church. ”

“ With this earliest state of things in our mind, we shall perceive that where an apostle or apostolic man was permanently resident in one particular church, a threefold ministry, like that of later church history already existed. So it was at Jerusalem where the presbyters and deacons were presided over by St. James. So it was in Crete under Titus, and in Ephesus under Timothy. So it was a few decades later in all the churches of Asia as organized by St. John. In other parts of the world the exact method by which the ministry developed is a matter of much dispute. ”