Universal church

“ The view of those who hold that 'there is but one living and true God,' but that 'in the Unity of this Godhead there are three Persons, of one substance, power, and eternity—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.' This view is called by its advocates Catholicism, for they hold that it is, and ever has been, the doctrine of the Universal Church of Christ ”

“ 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. ”

“ One can follow and serve Christ without any church{106} dogma. He has Himself told us plainly, in words simple enough for a child to understand, what He would have us do,—and though I, like many others, must regret the absence of a true Universal Church where the servants of Christ may meet all together without a shadow of difference in opinion, and worship Him as He should be worshiped, still, that is no reason why I should refrain from endeavoring to fulfil, as far as in me lies, my personal duty towards Him. ”

“ But, I go a step farther and ask whether the Church as an organization—not any one denomination, but the Church universal—appreciates its great opportunities, its tremendous responsibility, and the infinite power behind it. If the Church is what we believe it to be it must be prepared to grapple with every problem, individual and social, whether it affects only a community or involves a state, a nation, or a world. There must be some intelligence large enough to direct the world or the world will run amuck. ”

“ But as for you and your companions, you certainly sin, if, having heard the decrees of the Apostolic see, nay, of the universal Church, confirmed, as they are, by Holy Scripture, you scorn to follow them; for, though your fathers were holy, do you think that those few men, in a corner of the remotest island, are to be preferred before the universal Church of Christ throughout the world? ”

“ For Orders, as we understand them, are the pledge of the unity of the Church across all space and through all time, so that the priest who celebrates, does so as the organ and instrument of the universal Church, and the congregation at every Eucharist is not the few persons gathered together in that building, but Angels and Archangels and all the company of Heaven, with whom we join in prayer and worship. ”

“ Whether as members or external critics we have to do our best to get rid of obsolete doctrinal and ceremonial barriers, so that the churches may merge again in a universal Church, and that Church comprehend again the whole growing and amplifying spiritual life of the race. ”

“ In the confession of faith drawn up by that Council it is asserted that "there is one Universal Church of the Faithful, outside of which no one at all has salvation: in which Jesus Himself is at once priest and sacrifice, whose Body and Blood are truly received in the sacrament of the altar under the form of bread and wine, the bread being transubstantiated by the divine power into the Body and the wine into the Blood, in order that for the accomplishment of the mystery of the unity we may receive of His what He has received of ours. ”

“ And the Church, as the divine creation and instrument, shares and must express this character. It must be so constituted as to keep alive this faith. That is the meaning of hierarchies and sacraments. Whether any given order is the most adequate that can be designed, is of course a perfectly legitimate question. But every order that aspires to be catholic aims, at least, at expressing the truth that religion is a gift of God, and not a discovery of man. And certainly it is only the gift of God that can be truly catholic or universal. ”

“ No, it remains for the Holy Church alone to interpret Scripture to determine the rule of faith by which the souls of men are to be guided and governed. And what is the church? It is not any single supreme head, or any particular member alone. No! it is all the holiest, most learned, and most experienced men of all times, who, with the co-operation of the Holy Spirit, have successively combined together in building up that great, universal, and agreeing body, which has its great councils for its members to communicate their thoughts to one another, and for mutual edification ”

“ No, the appeal of the Church, as universal, is simply that it has within it that which answers the real and deepest need of every human being. There everyone will find his home, when once he has found his need of God, if indeed the Church is holy. ”

“ If this primary idea were restored, it would make mightily for the strengthening of Christ's kingdom. We usually put the emphasis on the church in general, universal and invisible, while the Holy Spirit puts the emphasis on the local, visible and tangible church. Our practical duties are connected almost entirely with the local church to which we belong and through which we chiefly help to build up the general and invisible church. ”

“ With him the primary idea of the Christian Church is of a brotherhood of 'men worshipping Christ as the revelation of the Highest.' Equality of Christian privilege is, in his view, so characteristic of its constitution that the existence of a priestly caste within its borders is destructive of it. Christian faith is in Christ Himself, and not in doctrines or formulas of even the holiest and wisest men. In the true and universal—i.e., the Catholic—Church there can be no majestry, only a ministry. It is a Spiritual Republic in which no worldly distinctions can be recognised. ”

“ The external means or aids by which God unites men into the fellowship of Christ, and sustains and advances those who believe, are the church and its ordinances, especially the sacraments. The church universal is the multitude gathered from diverse nations, which though divided by distance of time and place, agree in one common faith, and it is bound by the tie of the same religion ”

“ The Church must first be made one itself. The universal harmony predicted, and eventually to be realized in the world, must first pervade the elements of Christ’s Visible Church, and therefore as a means to that great end, even that p. 6the world may believe in, fully recognize, and submit to the authority of Him, whom God has sent, the Redeemer here prays, that His disciples may “be one;” implying thereby that the unity of the Church, is the great pre-requisite for the conversion of the world. ”

“ If the Church of England is, indeed, founded in the principle of Universal Charity, some of its Ministers are very heretical interpreters of its spirit, and yet we must do them the justice of confessing that the Creeds and Articles of the Church are equally unfortunate expounders of the spirit of Universal Charity. ”

“ Whether, therefore, we come to England, America, Germany or France, or any other country where similar religious movements are going on, we ask them to cooperate with us; we ask the whole world to treat us a fellow-disciples, to give unto us all the good things they possess and enjoy for our benefit, that we may thus collect materials from all existing churches and religious denominations, in order in the fullness of time, to construct and uprear the future Church of the world. ”

“ The real founder of the Church, however, was Jesus Christ. He supplied the fundamental ideas of: (a) the universal fatherhood of God, (b) the divine sonship of the Saviour of the world, (c) the brotherhood of man, and (d) the ethical law of self-sacrifice. He created the Church: (a) by choosing twelve Apostles, by teaching them and by commissioning them to continue the work; (b) by winning a number of converts to His doctrines; (c) by leaving certain sacraments for His followers—Catholics say seven; most Protestants, two. ”

“ Now, we ask, can this system commend itself to the human reason as rounded and complete enough to fulfil the Christian idea of a church, which should receive and embrace the whole world in one union of religious harmony? A book thrown into the world—for so it must look to human eyes who knew nothing of its divinity—which each one was to take up and interpret as he pleased ”

“ What avails it that the priest calls us "Christian," while the newspapers and the Congress prove us infidel? The social sacrament of religion is justice to all about you in society,—is honesty in trade and work, is friendship and philanthropy; the religious strong must help the weak. The ecclesiastical sacrament of a church must be its effort to promote piety and goodness in its own members first, and then to spread it round the world. Care for the bodies and souls of men, that is the real sacrament and ordinance of religion for society, the Church and State. ”

“ In every large city of the country are thousands crying for better education, the suffering poor are holding up weak hands for help, men and women morally blind, are asking for light to find Christ—the Christ of the Bible, not the Christ of dogma and creed, religion pure and undefiled, the church in the simplicity of the days of the apostles, the church that reaches out a helping hand to all the needs of humanity. ”

“ The Church is one body, not mixed up by a confusion of bodies, nor by each of these being united in an indiscriminate heap and shapeless bundle; but we are all one by the unity of faith, by the society of charity, by concord of works and will, by the one gift of the sacrament in all. ”

“ Instead of antagonistic sects, warring against, fretting, and weakening each other, we should have, out of many and diverse communions, one harmonious and united Church; not one in doctrine, discipline, and form of external worship, but one in spirit,—one in the real and practical acknowledgment of the Lord and his Word,—a Church all the more beautiful and perfect because of the endless diversity among its component parts. ”

“ For the Church of the middle ages, the undivided Church of Christ, was even in its purely mundane aspect the salvation of society, the safeguard of law and order, the last restraint of the powerful, and the last hope of the wretched. ”

“ One is brought suddenly face to face with the tremendous difference which exists between the Protestant and the Catholic conception of what a church is and what it is for. To the one it is a place where men meet for mutual support and instruction, for united worship; to the other it is a place where men meet God. ”

“ To exalt the spiritual character of Faith above the verbal and metaphysical,—to unite mankind through their common love and acceptance of Christ’s goodness and of Christ’s God,—to make his Church one by their participation of one spirit, even the spirit of the life of Jesus,—has been our highest aim, not only on this particular occasion, but throughout all our Ministry. ”

“ But the Church of Christ, precious as it is; beloved by its great Head; in the harmony of its truth, perfect; in the beauty of its holiness, passing all praise; in its power of salvation, absolute—yet the Church of Christ will doubtless stand under the protecting aegis of the Kingdom of God in common with other systems of religion, enjoying only such rights as will be common to all. ”

“ We may remark that what makes the attraction of a church is always what is consonant in it to the method and secret and temper of Jesus, and productive, therefore, of the saving results which flow from these. The attraction of the Catholic Church is unity, of the Protestant sects, conscience, of the Church of England, abuses reformed but unity saved. ”

“ Hence, any assembly of people, anywhere, united together for the worship of God, striving to live better lives themselves, and to help others to do the same, and thus make this world better and human life happier, meets all the essentials of a true church of God, regardless of any form of organization, ordinance, sacrament, creed, belief or ecclesiastical pedigree. ”

“ Our thirty years have therefore been spent, not only in overcoming our own difficulties, and in establishing and increasing ourselves, but also in endeavouring to extend the knowledge and influence of the gospel in the regions beyond. This indeed is the combined duty of every religious society. The church was instituted by its divine Lord, not only for preserving and professing the truths of the gospel, but also for propagating them. ”

“ Indeed the Church of itself, because of its wonderful propagation, its pre-eminent sanctity and inexhaustible fecundity in everything good, its Catholic unity and invincible duration, is a grand permanent proof of its credibility and irrefutable testimony in behalf of its divine mission. Thus, like a 'standard unto the nations,' it invites those to come to it who have not yet believed, and assures its children that the faith they profess rests upon a most firm foundation. ”

“ What has been spontaneous and intermittent is now becoming regular and continuous, until a social gospel is taking its place alongside individual evangelism. The Biblical phrase, "the kingdom of God," is being interpreted in terms of an improved social order. Religion, therefore, becomes a present-day force for progress, and the church an agency for social uplift. ”

“ Every one brings his own understanding and faith and insight, and the great Church is to him what he has capacity to understand and to receive. The great majority of worshippers could not draw a fine of the plans or expound a law of the construction, or set a stone in its place, yet the whole of it is theirs and for them, and their reverent awe, even if they have no further understanding, adds a spiritual grace and a fuller dignity to the whole. ”