CATHOLIC WORLD. (continued 2)

According, then, to Dr. Nevin, “the divine order of our being” made “partakers of the living Christ is in the Word of God.”

To make what is plain unmistakable, he adds:

“What we have to do, then, especially in the war we are called to wage with the powers of hell, is to see that this conjunction with Christ be in us really and truly, through a proper continual use of the Word of God for this purpose.”

There is here and there throughout this article a haziness of language which smacks of Swedenborgianism, and makes it difficult to seize its precise meaning; but we submit that Dr. Nevin—and he will probably accept the statement, as our only aim is to get at his real meaning—proceeds on the supposition that Christianity is a theory, and becomes real as each individual, illumined by divine light, discovers and appropriates it in reading the written Word—the Bible. This is the common ground of Protestantism; and Dr. Nevin holds no other than the rule of faith of all Protestants. The following passage places this beyond doubt or cavil:

“It was the life of the risen Lord himself, shining into the written Word, and through this into the mind of the disciples, Pg 465 which, by inward correspondence, served to open their understanding to the proper knowledge of both. And as it was then, so it is still. We learn what the written Word is only by light from the incarnate Word; but then, again, we learn what the light of the incarnate Word is only as this shines into us through the written Word—a circle, it is true, which alone, however, brings us to the true ground of the Christian faith.”

We need scarcely tell our readers that this pretended rule of faith is no rule of faith at all. It breaks down on any reasonable test which you may apply to it. It will not stand the trial of the written Word itself, nor of history, nor of common sense, nor of good and sound logic. This has been too often demonstrated to require here long argumentation. Therefore, when a man ventures to speak for Christianity, and professes to define and explain what is Christianity, the question rises up at once, and naturally: What does this man know, in fact, about Christianity? Did he live in the time of Christ? Did he ever speak to Christ, or see him? Was he a witness to his miracles? Why, no! He can bear testimony to none of these events. If he was not a contemporary of Christ, what, then, does he know about him? Where has he obtained his knowledge to set up for a teacher of Christianity? On what grounds does he presume to speak for Christianity? Does he come commissioned by those whom Christ authorized to teach in his name? Why, no; they repudiate him in the character of a teacher of Christ. Does he prove by direct miraculous power from God to speak in his name? Why, no! Then he has no commission, indirect or direct; then he is unauthorized, a self-sent and a self-appointed teacher!

But do these documents profess to give a full and complete account of Christianity? By no means. He assumes this too. What! assumes the vital point of his own rule, which is in dispute? He does. Strange that those who were inspired to write these so important documents should not have written their great object plainly on their face; and stranger still, if they did, that this should have remained a secret many centuries before its discovery!

Then this was not the way the primitive Christians learned Christianity? Not at all. There were millions of Christians who spilt their blood for Christianity, and millions more who had died in the faith, before these documents were verified and put in the shape which we now have them and call the Bible. This pretended rule, then, unchristianizes the early Christians? It does; and does more—it unchristianizes the great bulk of Christians Pg 466 since; for the mass of Christians could not obtain Bibles before the invention of printing, and could not read them if they had them. Even to-day, if this be the rule, how about the children, the blind, and those who cannot read—not a small number? How are they to become Christians?

But as the Bible is an inspired book, to get at its true meaning requires the same divine Spirit which inspired it? Of course it does. But do they that follow this rule assume that each one for himself has this divine Spirit? Nothing else. But are they sure of this? Sure of it?—they say so. But are they sure that each one has the divine Spirit to interpret rightly the divinely-inspired, written Word? Each one thinks so. Thinks so! But do they not know it? Do they not know it? Why, let me explain: “You see we learn what the written Word is only by light from the incarnate Word.” But how do you get the light from the incarnate Word? Why, “we learn what the light of the incarnate Word is only as this shines into us through the written Word.” That is, you suppose that the Bible, read with proper dispositions, conveys to your soul divine grace? Just so. That is, you put the Bible in the place of the sacraments; but that is not the question now. The question, the point, now at issue is: How do you know that that light which shines into you through the written Word is not “a fond sentiment simply of your own fancy,” is not a delusion, instead of “the light of the incarnate Word”? “Oh! I see what you are aiming at. A book divinely inspired requires for its interpreter the divine Spirit to get at its divine meaning. Now, if those who assume to possess this Spirit contradict each other point-blank

Perhaps so; nevertheless, those who follow this rule of faith do differ in their interpretation of Holy Scripture, and differ as far as heaven is from earth. There is no end to their differences. Almost every day breeds a new sect. They not only differ from each other, but each one differs from himself; and why? Because none are certain that they have the inspired Word of God, except on a basis which undermines their position; and none are certain that the light by which they interpret the written Word of God is the unerring Spirit of truth. Hence all who hold this rule gradually decline into uncertitude, doubt, scepticism, and total unbelief.

But how do the followers of this rule of faith interpret those passages of Holy Scriptures which speak so plainly of the church?—for instance, where Christ promises to “build his church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”; “He that heareth not the church, let him be to thee as a heathen and a publican”; “The church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth”; “Christ died for the church”; “The church is ever subject to Christ”; and others of like import. They either pass them by as of no account, or deal with them as an artist does with a piece of clay or wax—they mould them to suit their fancy. Truly, this rule of faith reduces the divine reality of Christianity to the efforts of one’s own thought—“a theory.”

Dr. Nevin may struggle against the inevitable results of this rule, Pg 467 as he does in several places in the present article, but he stands on the same inclined plane as those whom he condemns, and, in spite of his earnest counter-efforts, he is descending visibly with them into the same abyss. For the effort to get at the reality of Christianity, and to escape the recognition of the divine authority of the church, through the personal interpretation of the written Word, is a vain, absurd, and fatal expedient. “He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up another way, the same is a thief and a robber” (John x. 1).

As the attempt to separate the church and Christianity from each other empties Christianity of all its contents and destroys its reality, so, reversely, the conception of the transcendent union and inseparability of the church and Christianity leads to the recognition of the living, constant, divine reality of Christianity. For the Christian Church was called into being by God, the Holy Ghost, the Creator Spirit; and as this primary creative act still subsists in her in all its original vigor, she is, at every moment of her life, equally real, living, divine. Just as the created universe exists by the continuation of the creative act which called it into existence at the beginning, so the Catholic Church exists by the continuation of the supernatural creative act which called her into existence on the day of Pentecost. Once the church, always the church.

The church and the Bible are, in their divine origin, one; they co-operate together for the same end, and are in their nature inseparable. But the written Word is relative or subsidiary to the church, having for its aim to enlighten, to strengthen, and to perfect the faithful in

Were not a word of divine revelation written, the church would have none the less existed in all her divine reality, and she would have none the less accomplished her divine mission upon earth. For God, the indwelling Holy Spirit, is her life, power, guide, and protector. God the Son was incarnate in the man Christ Jesus; so God the Holy Spirit was incorporate in the holy Catholic Church.

Undoubtedly the apostles were inspired by the Holy Spirit to write all that they wrote; but their Gospels and their Epistles always presuppose the church as existing. To appeal, therefore, from the church to the written Word of the New Testament, if nothing else, is to be guilty of an anachronism.

Even as to the Old Testament, before the Incarnation as well as after the Incarnation, the reality of the church consisted in that supernatural communion between God and man which existed at the moment of his creation. The church, therefore, existed, at least in potentiality, in the garden of Paradise, and was historically primary Pg 468 in the order of supernatural communications.

Wherein does Dr. Nevin differ from the Ebionites, the Nicolaites, the Gnostics, the common Protestants, down to Joe Smith, Père Hyacinthe, and Bishop Reinkens? Perceptibly, at bottom, there is no difference. Dr. Nevin appears to have never asked himself seriously the most searching of all questions, to wit: What, in the last analysis, is the basis, standard, or rule by which I judge what is and what is not Christianity? He ventures to treat of the gravest questions and most momentous mysteries touching the kingdom of God, on which the saints would not have ventured a personal opinion; and on what grounds? But it may be said in his excuse, and with truth, that this self-sufficient attitude is due to the very position of defiance to the divine authority of the church in which all those who have gone out, or are born out, of her fold are necessarily involved.

To sum up: Either we must suppose that God has left the task

But the history of these last three centuries shows conclusively that there is no standing-place between the Catholic Church and Protestantism; and it has made it equally clear that Protestantism has no standing ground of its own, and therefore no man can be a Christian, and defend with perfect consistency his position, out of the Catholic Church.

Pg 469

SIX SUNNY MONTHS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC.