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Page 9
"Father," He prayed, grant "that they may ALL BE ONE, as Thou art in
Me, and as I am in Thee, that they also may be one in us, THAT THE
WORLD MAY KNOW that Thou hast sent Me" (John xvii. 21). Unity, then,
is undeniably the test and sign-manual attached by Christ to His
Bride, the Church; the presence or absence of which must (if there be
any truth in God) determine the genuineness or the falsity of every
claimant.
Now, this mark is nowhere found outside the One, Holy, Catholic and
Apostolic Church, whose centre is in Rome.
Other Churches not merely do not possess unity. They do not possess so
much as the requisite machinery to produce it, nor even the means of
preserving it, if produced.
With us, on the contrary, it flows as naturally and as directly from
the recognised Supremacy and Infallibility of the Vicar of Christ as
light flows from the sun. It is so manifest that it would seem only
the blind can fail to see it: so that one is sometimes puzzled to know
how to excuse educated Protestants from the damnable sin of _vincible_
ignorance. Thus, the faithful throughout the entire world are in
constant communication with their respective pastors; the pastors, in
their turn, are in direct communication with their respective Bishops,
and the Bishops, dispersed throughout the length and breadth of
Christendom, are in close and direct communication with the one
Supreme and Infallible Ruler, whom the Lord has placed over all His
possessions; who has been promised immunity from error; and whose
special duty and office is to "confirm his brethren" (Luke xxii. 32).
By this most simple, yet most practical and effective expedient, the
very least and humblest catechumen in China or Australia is as truly
in touch with the central authority at the Vatican, and as completely
under its direction in matters of faith and morals, as the crowned
heads of Spain or Austria, or as the Archbishops of Paris or Malines.
Certainly _Digitus Dei est hic_: the finger of God is here. The simple
fact is, there is always something about the works of God which
clearly differentiate them from the products of man, however close may
be the mere external and surface resemblance. A thousand artists may
carve a thousand acorns, so cunningly coloured, and so admirably
contrived as to be practically indistinguishable from the genuine
fruit of the oak. Each of these thousand artists may present me with
his manufactured acorn, and may assure me of its genuineness. And,
alas! I may be quite deceived and taken in; yes, but only _for a
time_. When I plant them in the soil, together with the genuine acorn,
and give them time to develop, the fraud is detected, and the truth
revealed. For the real seed proves its worth. How? In the simplest way
possible, that is to say, by actually doing what it was destined and
created to do. That is, by growing and developing into a majestic oak,
while the false and human imitations fall to pieces, belie all one's
hopes, and are found to produce neither branch nor leaf nor fruit.
This is but an illustration of what may be observed equally in the
spiritual order, although there it is attended by more disastrous
consequences. Thus we find hundreds of Churches proclaiming themselves
to be foundations of God, which Time, the old Justice who tries all
such offenders, soon proves, most unmistakably, to be nothing but the
contrivances of man. They may bear a certain external resemblance to
the true Church, planted by the Divine Husbandman, but like the
man-made acorns, they deceive all our expectations, and are wholly
unable to redeem their promises, or to live up to their pretensions.
For, while one and all declare with their lips that they possess the
truth as revealed by Christ, their glaring divisions, irreconcilable
differences, and internal dissensions emphatically prove that the
truth is not in them: and that they have been built, not on the rock,
but on the shifting sand, and are the erections, not of God, but of
feeble, fickle men.
On the other hand, the Catholic Church, amid a thousand sects,
resembles the genuine acorn among the thousand imitations. Not only
does she alone possess the whole truth; but she alone can stand up and
actually prove this claim to the entire world, by pointing defiantly
at her marvellous and miraculous unity--a unity so conspicuous, and so
striking, and so absolutely unique, that even the hostile and bigoted
Protestant press can sometimes scarcely refrain from bearing an
unwilling testimony to it.
We might give many instances of this, and quote from many sources, but
let the following extract from London's leading journal serve as an
example. It is no other paper than the _Times_, which makes the
following admission on occasion of the Vatican Council which opened in
1869: "Seven hundred Bishops, more or less, representing all
Christendom, were seen gathered round one altar and one throne,
partaking of the same Divine Mystery, and rendering homage, by turns,
to the same spiritual authority and power. As they put on their
mitres, or took them off, and as they came to the steps of the altar,
or the foot of the common spiritual Father, it was IMPOSSIBLE
not to feel the UNITY and the power of the Church which they
represented" (16th Dec., 1869). Here, then, is the most influential
journal certainly of Great Britain, perhaps of the world, proclaiming
to its readers far and wide, not simply that the Roman Catholic Church
is one, but that her oneness is of such a sterling quality, and of so
pronounced a character that it is impossible--mark the word,
impossible!--not to feel it. Yet men ask where the Church of God is to
be found. They ask for a sign, and lo! when God gives them one they
cannot see it, nor interpret it, nor make anything out of it: and
prefer to linger on in what Newman calls "the cities of confusion,"
than find peace and security in "the communion of Rome, which is that
Church which the Apostles set up at Pentecost, which alone has 'the
adoption of sons, and the glory and the covenants and the revealed
law, and the service of God and the promises,' and in which the
Anglican [or any other Protestant] communion, whatever it merits and
demerits, whatever the great excellence of individuals in it, has, as
such, no part". But this is a digression. Let us return to our
subject.
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