Ecclesiastical tradition

“ The church of the apostles, of the fathers, of the doctors, of the schoolmen, the church that built up Christendom, invariably recognized the principle of ecclesiastical obedience, docility, submission, as a part of faith, not as inconsistent with the intuition of faith—its moral element, as the other is its intellectual. ”

“ At every session the most important questions of the day are discussed with freedom and always with great ability. Among other themes which have come up for careful attention, we may mention the relation of church and state, the sanctity of the Sabbath, divorce and the oath, the relations of Protestantism to Romanism, all forms of skepticism, and the inner organization of the church,—such as the renewal of the diaconate, the possession of church estates, and the abrogation or retainment of ecclesiastical discipline. ”

“ It may be objected that the Church would have no part in the killing of their fellow worshippers, but ecclesiastics themselves have a better understanding of the ecclesiastical mind and ecclesiastical conscience. ”

“ CHAPTER VIII. THE CATHOLIC SYSTEM. The word catholic, which signifies universal or general, came into use towards the end of the second century. Its introduction indicates a new phase in the history of the ecclesiastical community. For upwards of a hundred years after its formation, the Church presented the appearance of one great and harmonious brotherhood, as false teachers had hitherto failed to create any considerable diversity of sentiment; but when many of the literati began to embrace the gospel, the influence of elements of discord soon became obvious. ”

“ In the ecclesiastical domain we find the same ideas taken henceforth as the true basis of Church government. The Church is not the priestly order and hierarchy alone, but the whole body of Christians. ”

“ Never let us think that we can understand the history of the Church apart from the history of the world, any more than that we can separate the interests of the clergy from the interests of the laity, which are the interests of the Church at large.
How to adjust the relations of the two spheres to each other is almost as indefinite a task in history as it is in practice and in philosophy. In no age Points of contact between Civil and Ecclesiastical History.are they precisely the same. "Christians," it was well said by an ancient writer, "are to the world what the soul is to the body;" ”

“ His theory, which marks the culminating point of English sacerdotalism, represents the episcopate and episcopally ordained clergy as a spiritual power co-ordinate with the temporal power, and associated with it in a federal union, the regal supremacy in matters ecclesiastical being treated as a mere derivative from the papal usurpation. ”

“ Hitherto holding strong High Church views in some directions, he now assumed a position which ultimately led to his abandoning the doctrine of Apostolical succession, and ordaining pastors and bishops, and finally creating a separate ecclesiastical organisation. ”

“ The Church makes church-order a matter of ecclesiastical constitution, is founded on moral practice, and though she develops speculative dogma, does not allow that this or that dogma is the essence of Christianity. ”

“ If any of them' were 'grieved one with another,' they were to 'complain to the King's Highness or the Archbishop or Bishop of the diocese.' They were 'purely, sincerely, and justly' to 'preach the Scripture and words of Christ, and not mix them with men's institutions, or make men believe that the force of God's law and man's law was the like.' On subjects such as purgatory, worship of saints and relics, marriage of the clergy, justification by faith, pilgrimages and miracles, they were to keep silence for one whole year, and not to preach at all. ”

“ As the real founder of the ecclesiastical state, he must be held mainly responsible for the evils which resulted from the policy of the church in exalting the ecclesiastical over the secular authority. ”

“ They believed in ecclesiastical purism, held the Church to be an exclusive society of saved sinners, emphasised inner holiness as a qualification of membership, asserted the necessity of baptismal regeneration and infant baptism, said unholy priests could not administer the sacraments, advocated rigid discipline, resisted the union of Church and state, and were organised as a hierarchy. ”

“ Should the patronage of Christian denominations, generally, warrant the undertaking, a regular series of the entire works, and parts of works, of primitive Christianity, as nearly in their chronological order as may be, adapted to the use of parish, congregational, and other public libraries, will, as soon as the important arrangements necessary to its being executed in good faith can be made, be commenced. ”

“ The character of ecclesiastical as of all other institutions has varied with the character of the men who have worked them and the varying needs of the times and places in which they have been worked; and our intense feeling of the gratitude we owe to English Puritanism need in nowise diminish the enthusiasm with which we praise the glorious work of the mediaeval church. ”

“ We will begin with laws ecclesiastical, where, first of all, it must be considered well what power the church hath to make laws about things pertaining to religion and the worship of God, and how far the same doth extend itself. ”

“ They state what is, not invent what is to be. Now, history or written tradition, as contradistinguished from Scripture, testifies to every simple tenet of the Catholic Church—her creeds, liturgy, sacraments, jurisdiction. It testifies unerringly, too, even from the objections of heretics, to the fact that this church has been always believed divine in her origin, divine in her teaching, infallible and unerring in her solemn pronouncements. ”

“ Now that is the sacrament of ecclesiastical unity, according to the Apostle (1 Cor. 10:17) : "We, being many, are one bread, one body, all that partake of one bread and one chalice." Moreover, by Baptism a man becomes a participator in ecclesiastical unity, wherefore also he receives the right to approach our Lord's Table. ”

“ The Reformers in the sixteenth century—the men like Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin—made a great point of what they called their catholicity, i.e., their claim to represent the true Church of Christ, to be the lawful inheritors of apostolic tradition. ”

“ An ecclesiastical obra pia he defines as “any foundation made through motives of religious piety, or with the purpose of exercising Christian charity, with the approbation and authorization of the bishop.”47 Against this Dr. ”

“ The church was now in the highest power—every vestige of episcopacy banished, popery treated as a crime, the doctrine of the headship of Christ in full paramountcy, and enabling the clergy to exercise an unlimited authority over the external religious practice and professions of the community. It was ruled that each head of a family should conduct worship and reading of the Scriptures daily in his house, catechise, reprove, and exhort amongst his children, servants, and dependents. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The method we have pointed out or the Catholic rule produces the conviction of the truth of the church and what she teaches, and shows it to be one’s duty to seek, if he has it not, the grace that inclines the will, illumines the understanding, and regenerates the soul. ”

“ Let us pray for the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church which is spread from one end of the earth to the other; that God would preserve and keep it unshaken, and free from the waves of this life, until the end of the world, as founded upon a rock; and for the holy parish in this place, that the Lord of the whole world may vouchsafe us without failure to follow after His heavenly hope, and without ceasing to pay Him the debt of our prayer. Let us pray for every episcopacy which is under the whole heaven, of those that rightly divide the word of Thy truth. ”

“ The principles asserted were:—That men are justified by faith alone; that an assembly of true believers constitutes the Church; that it is not necessary that forms and ceremonies should be everywhere the same; that preaching, the sacraments, and infant baptism, are necessary; that Christ is really present in the sacrament [Pg 268] of the Lord's Supper, which should be administered to the congregation in both forms; that monastic vows, fasting, pilgrimages and the invocation of saints are useless, and that priests must be allowed to marry. ”

“ What we have said will be sufficient, we trust, to stimulate all those who are imbued with the spirit of Catholic faith to greater zeal and effort in the sacred cause of the church, in which the laity have as great an interest as the clergy. ”

“ The simple fact, therefore, that an individual holds a certain position in any section of the visible Church, is no decisive evidence that he is a true shepherd. Such, however, was not the doctrine of Catholicism. ”

“ If ecclesiastical deliberations are said to be specially inspired or directed by an illuminating and supernatural power, we should examine whether the councils and convocations of clergymen exhibit a degree and harmony of wisdom that cannot reasonably be accounted for by the play of our unassisted faculties. ”

“ These waverers, these men who lack force of character, whose hearts are charged with diluted Catholicism, know and believe, and by listening to sermons and religious instructions can completely convince themselves, that the Catholic Church is divine in her origin, holy in her founder, infallible in her doctrines, apostolic in her organization, glorious and wonderful in her saints. ”

“ The reasons why I make no larger a profession necessary than the Creed and Scriptures, are, because if we depart from this old sufficient Catholic rule, we narrow the Church, and depart from the old Catholicism. ”

“ But though my acquaintance with the Roman Catholic Clergy is very limited, yet the few I do know could not be mentioned as exceptions to what I have just said of the Protestant; and, exclusive of all personal knowledge of the men, it is natural to think that the habitual performance of the ceremonies of the Christian religion, though intermingled with some superstitious rites, and the preaching the doctrines of benevolence and good-will towards men, must have some influence on the lives and characters of those who are thus employed. ”

“ Why call it catholic, when it is not only just one among many churches, but is even hostile to all the rest of the churches? Father, why not let the Catholic Church become really the universal Church? ”

“ Ingleby.—"Yes, Sir; our clergy who advocate high church principles talk like Papal priests, and breathe the same spirit; and, unless they can be checked, they will assimilate the Church of England to the Church of Rome. Regeneration and absolution, which the sacred writers ascribe to the grace of God, they [448] pretend to effect by their own delegated authority and power; and, as a necessary consequence, they require the people to look to them as holding the keys of the kingdom of heaven. ”

“ The sacramental extension of the Theanthropos in time and space we have demonstrated to be the Catholic Church, and from its essence we have drawn her essential attributes of visibility, indefectibility, infallibility, and authority, and also its intrinsic marks of unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity. ”

“ In the Creed the Holy Catholic Church means the whole body of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, all who anywhere and everywhere are looking to Him for salvation, and are bringing forth the fruits of holiness to His praise and glory. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They have sprung up in every part and period of Christendom; more in the Catholic Church than anywhere else, because its ritual and doctrine, its organized religious life and its practice of direction, furnish for them unequalled facilities and provocatives. ”

“ But the declarations of the clergy, for the most part, are all in unison, in all the various churches--Catholic and Protestant, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist--which accept God Almighty as the moral governor of the universe, the great master of our destinies, whose eternal voice speaketh to the conscience of mankind. And hence their teachings, if they are true to their calling, have reference to interests and duties and aspirations and hopes as far removed in importance from mere temporal matters as the heaven is higher than the earth. ”

“ Great are the claims, therefore, of these societies upon the members of the Church of England, for their support, that all of her communion may be educated, nourished, and preserved in those principles of saving faith and holy obedience, which, drawn directly from Scripture, are summed up in the articles, embodied in the liturgy, and explained in the homilies of our pure and reformed branch of the church of Christ. ”

“ The unmarried clergy and the virgins deemed it right to cultivate the communion of saints after a new fashion, alleging that, in each other's society, they enjoyed peculiar advantages for spiritual improvement. ”