As is quite obvious, of several religions which are opposed to one another in doctrine, as they needs must be, only one can be true. And as a false religion is necessarily evil, because diametrically opposed to God's essential truthfulness, reason points unmistakably to the fact that there can be but one religion, which all are obliged to embrace. What reason thus demonstrates as a logical necessity, Christ Himself, as was shown in the last chapter, taught as a moral duty, when He said: He that believeth not all things whatsoever I have commanded shall be condemned." Hence there rests upon every reasonable being the strict obligation to ascertain, as far as he can, which is the true religion established by Christ; and the further duty to embrace the same, notwithstanding the greatest difficulties that may bar the way. Consequently the vital question that now presents itself is: Which is the true religion? This question, as is manifest, presupposes that the one true religion established by Christ still exists somewhere upon earth. Nor is there any need of proving the correctness of this supposition. For the very fact that Christ built His Church upon a rock, so that the powers of hell should not prevail against it; the fact that He commanded the Gospel to be preached to all nations and to every creature; and the further fact that He promised those, who were to announce the Gospel, His own divine assistance and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit till the very end of time, places the indefectibility and the perpetuity of the Church, and therefore of the one true religion, beyond the possibility of all reasonable doubt. As it would be against reason and Revelation to hold that He came to redeem only the men who were contemporaneous with His stay upon earth, so also would it be against both the one and the other to maintain that His Church, or the one true religion, was intended only for the contemporaries of the Apostles. Hence the religion, which Christ established nearly two thousand years ago, exists to-day, and exists in all the fullness of unadulterated truth with which it was dowered by Him as its divine founder.
Nor is its mere existence a certain and indisputable fact, but it must needs exist as a visible religion, which can be recognized by all. For those terrible words of Christ, "He that believeth not shall be condemned," bear reference to the men of our day as well as to the contemporaries of the Apostles. Consequently the one true religion, which one soever it be, must be distinguishable from all others in such wise, that any sincere and earnest searcher after the truth can satisfy himself that it is the religion which Christ established, and which he is bound under pain of eternal damnation to embrace. This is quite in harmony with Christ's own teaching on the matter, for He calls His Church a city built upon a mountain, so that any man may behold it if he will but open his eyes and look.
From what has been shown in the preceding chapter, it must needs be granted by all that the most essential mark of Christ's religion, whereby it may with certainty be recognized as His own, is absolute unity of faith among all believers. Upon this He insisted in season and out of season; He not only prayed for it at the most solemn moment of His life, and urged it upon His followers on all occasions, but He made it so essential that He threatened eternal damnation to every one who should in the slightest interfere therewith, by refusing to believe the whole Gospel as preached by His Apostles and their successors. Nay, He made that unity a proof of His own divine mission, saying: "Holy Father, I pray . . . that they all may be one . . so that the world may believe that Thou hast sent me." Hence it is quite obvious that a religious system, which has not this unity, cannot possibly be the true religion. And on the other hand, if it can be shown that there exists to-day but one religion that has, and always had, and always will have this unity of faith, the same must be admitted to be the true religion acknowledged by Christ as His own. The question, therefore, Which is the true religion? is identical with this one: Which of the existing Christian religions is the only one that has this absolute unity of faith demanded by Christ?
Now, this question will certainly be answered fully, if it be shown that there exists to-day just one religion that contains within itself the principle of unity; just one religion that actually possesses unity; and, lastly, that there is but one religion that even claims to have unity. A religion of which these three points can simultaneously be predicated must certainly have unity of faith; and on the other hand, a religion of which not one of these points can be affirmed can certainly have no unity of faith. Which religion has this unity, and which religions have not, we shall now proceed to show.
It has been stated that there are at present about seven hundred different religious denominations, which profess to prove their system of theology from the Bible, and, therefore, in one way or another, claim Christ as the founder of their religion. In view of this multiplicity of professedly true religions, our present inquiry would seem to be about as hopeless as the proverbial search after a needle in a haystack. However, we can facilitate this matter considerably by following the time-honored custom of dividing all these systems into two general classes, represented respectively by the Catholic Church as one class, and by the Protestant Churches as the other. The reason for this division lies primarily in the fact that the Protestant Churches, though at variance among themselves as regards many points of doctrine, admit one and all the same rule of faith, and this rule is rejected in its entirety by the Catholic Church. It is, therefore, not an arbitrary division, made to bias the judgment in solving the proposed difficulty, but flows spontaneously from the very essence of the religions in question, and this being the case, it must be acceptable to all. Nor can any one reasonably object that the Schismatical, or so-called Orthodox Churches of Greece and Russia, are thus left out of count; for, in as much as they have no infallible judge in matters of faith, they naturally belong to the same category as the numerous progeny of the Protestant Reformation. Hence the question: Which is the true religion? is narrowed down to this: In which of these two classes, in the Catholic Church or in the Protestant Churches, is found that unity of faith which is an essential mark of the true religion established by Christ? If we now examine into the matter with a view to answer this question, we find first of all that the Protestant Churches, whether taken collectively or considered singly, do not possess a principle of unity. For the principle of unity must needs be identical with the rule of faith, and in order to be a unifying principle, it must of its own nature tend to unite individual judgments in regard to revealed truths. Yet such a rule of faith none of the Protestant Churches admit. In one and all the decision as to what is of faith rests ultimately with the Bible as interpreted by each individual for himself. But the Bible, as interpreted by the individual, means neither more nor less than the individual's interpretation of the Bible, or the individual's private judgment concerning the truth said to be contained in the Bible, and, therefore the rule of faith, common to all Protestant Churches, and in practice followed by every one of them, is private judgment. Now, private judgment, so far from being a principle of unity, is rather a source of division. The old saying, "Tot sententiae, quot capita," as many opinions as there are heads, is applicable in matters of religion as well as in other affairs of life, when left to the decision of many. If every doctrine contained in the Bible were as clear and evident as the fact that two and two make four, private judgment might possibly be compatible with unity in faith; but as there are many Biblical truths that are anything but clear and evident, the inevitable result of applying private judgment to them is the veriest Babel of conflicting opinions. Nay, this diversity of opinion is apt to arise even in cases where the truth in question seems to be quite obvious. What, for instance, could be simpler and clearer than this short sentence, spoken by Our Lord at the Last Supper: "This is my body"? It is a direct and positive statement, containing just four words; -- the simplest proposition that can possibly be uttered by man: yet hardly a quarter of a century had elapsed since the introduction of private, judgment as a rule of faith, when this one short sentence was interpreted, as a contemporary writer testifies, in as many as two hundred different ways. Surely a principle that can give rise to such a variety of opinions in regard to the meaning of the simplest of sentences cannot be considered a source of unity in the faith. Yet every rule of faith, that the different Protestant Churches make use of, is ultimately reducible to this one; consequently not one of these churches has the principle of unity.
And as Protestant Churches have no unifying principle, so neither have they actual unity. Division, dissension, and discord have been the distinguishing marks of Protestantism from its very birth; so much so that it alarmed the reformers themselves. "It is of great importance," wrote Calvin to his fellow reformer, Melanchthon, "that the divisions which subsist among us should not be known to future ages; for nothing can be more ridiculous than that we, who have been compelled to make a separation from the whole world, should have agreed so ill among ourselves from the very beginning of the Reformation."{1} To this Melanchthon replied that "the Elbe, with all its waters, could not furnish tears enough to weep over the miseries of the distracted Reformation."{2} The same note of alarm is sounded by Theodore Beza, another reformer. "Our people," he says, "are carried away by every wind of doctrine. If you know what their religion is to-day, you cannot tell what it may be to-morrow. There is not a single point which is not held by some of them as an article of faith, and by others rejected as an impiety."{3}
Nor is it the different denominations only that are at variance with one another, as might be expected, but there exists the greatest diversity of opinion even among the members of one and the same denomination. This is especially the case where successive unity comes in question. What was yesterday held as an article of the faith, is today rejected as rank heresy. The course of Protestantism through the four centuries of its existence is strewn with the wrecks of cast-off doctrines, which were at the outset retained, then called in question, then modified, and finally abandoned. The eternity of hell, the necessity of faith, the efficacy of the sacraments, the virgin birth of Christ, the divine personality of the Saviour, and scores of other doctrines, upon which the very existence of Christianity depends, have either wholly or in part been relegated to the limbo of half-forgotten fables, so that in many Churches little remains save the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of man, which even a pagan of Nero's time might have professed without running the slightest risk of being called upon to seal his faith with the sacrifice of his life. If Luther or Calvin or Zwingli, or any other of the so-called reformers were allowed to visit today the sects which they founded some three hundred years ago, they would recognize little in them as their own besides the name.
And as there is no bond of union with the past, so neither is there unity of faith among present members. It is the hardest thing in the world to find even a small number of Protestants belonging to the same denomination that agree on all points of doctrine. Each one has his own opinion on the matter, and as often as not these opinions are irreconcilable, the one with the other. Hence there is a continual splitting up of older sects into new ones, the oddity of whose names is not more striking than the strangeness of their doctrines. As an instance take the Baptist Church, which is said to number some four million communicants in this country. Internal dissension has been so active that it has given rise to thirteen new denominations, each one of which contends that it possesses the pure Gospel. Hence we have the Regular North Baptists, the Regular South Baptists, the Regular Colored Baptists, the Six Principles Baptists, the Seventh-Day Baptists, the Free Will Baptists, the Original Free Will Baptists, the General Baptists, the United Baptists, the Separate Baptists, the Baptist Church of Christ, the Primitive Baptists, and lastly the Old Two Seed in the Spirit Predestinarian Baptists. A similar condition of things obtains in other denominations. Thus the Presbyterian Church comprises twelve separate religious bodies, differing in doctrine, the Methodist Church seventeen, and the Lutheran twenty-two. Nay, even where this actual splitting up of older sects into new ones does not seem to occur, there is unity only in so far as all agree to disagree. What Dr. Ryle, the Anglican Bishop of Liverpool, said some years ago of his own Church, is wholly or in part applicable to every Protestant denomination existing to-day. "The English Church," he said, "is in such a state of chaotic anarchy and lawlessness that it does not appear to matter a jot what a clergyman holds and believes."{4} The same point was strikingly illustrated a few years ago in our own country, in the case of the Rev. Dr. Samuel T. Carter, of the Nassau Presbytery, Long Island. He absolutely refused to believe in the fall of man, the redemption by blood, and other fundamental doctrines of the Westminster Confession, yet the Presbytery decided that brother Carter might, his heterodox views notwithstanding, continue his honored connection with the Presbyterian communion. Surely where such things happen it were idle to look for unity of faith.
But what is worse still, not only is there no actual unity of faith anywhere in these Churches, but they do not even lay claim to such unity. This may seem strange, yet it is an undeniable fact admitted by eminent Protestant divines. As early as 1868, the Protestant bishops of England, gathered in Convocation, announced this openly to the world. His Lordship of Winchester maintained that "discord in doctrine is a thing as inevitable as that different men should have different faces." His Lordship of Salisbury opined that "if any attempt were made to enforce a uniform creed, it would break up the Church." His Lordship of Ely volunteered the information that "at all times since the Reformation people had been allowed to hold extreme doctrines on one side and on the other." Whilst the Archbishop of Canterbury remarked: "As to divergences of opinion among the clergy, I do not wish to restrain and curb the liberty of the clergy."{5} Statements like these do not only prove the absence of all unity in the faith, but they are a positive renunciation of the same.
And the condition of things that' obtains in conservative England, has its counterpart in Protestant Churches wherever found. How matters stand in our own country may, to some extent, be inferred from the case of Dr. Carter, commented upon in a previous paragraph. It is the same in Germany, the birthplace of Protestantism. When about five years ago the Society of "Liberal" Church Members in Mannheim, Baden, addressed a petition to the Synodal Council, demanding undogmatic Christianity, the Council returned this characteristic reply: "There exist and have for a long time existed in the Evangelical Church two currents, both as natural as they are necessary. The one conservative, holding fast to the received doctrines; the other progressive, always questioning, always seeking to harmonize our traditional faith with modern ideas. Both parties have a right to exist without let or hindrance. Hence we must refuse to consider the petition, as we cannot, in the interest of peace, favor one party at the expense of the other." Apparently the Council refused to indorse undogmatic Christianity, yet in reality it accepts the same as an accomplished and "necessary fact," and by so doing renounces all claim to unity in the faith.
Similar views are expressed by representative men of other Protestant denominations. Freedom of opinion in matters of faith is the watchword of one and all. And necessarily so. As the parishioners of St. Mark's, in Berlin, well put it, when their pastor, in one of his sermons, denied the divinity of Christ, and was "mildly rebuked" by the Consistory, "it is contrary to the Protestant principles of private interpretation to gag a minister by warnings and threats." Yes, so it is; as each one is supposed to be his own Daniel, there is among Protestants no room for authoritative "warnings" in matters of faith, but neither is there room for unity. Rejection of the one implies renunciation of the other; hence it can truly be said that Protestants do not even lay claim to unity in the faith, but rather reject the same as opposed to the fundamental principle of their system.
Can this renunciation of unity be reconciled with the doctrine of Christ expressed in the words, "He that believeth not all things whatsoever I have commanded shall be condemned"? Does it agree with the declaration of St. Paul, "If we, nay, if an angel from heaven, preach to you a gospel other than that which you have received, let him be anathema"? If it does, then one contradictory is as true as the other; then black is white and white is black. Consequently, whatever may be said of Protestant religions, they certainly are not the religion that Christ acknowledges as His own; for they, one and all, lack the essential mark which Christ impressed upon His Church for all times -- unity of faith and oneness of doctrine. And this applies with equal force to the Eastern Schismatical Churches, because in the absence of an infallible and universal rule of faith, sects are forming with such rapidity within these same churches, that years ago Czar Nicholas I did not hesitate to predict that Russia would perish by her religious divisions.
From this we might safely infer that the one true religion established by Christ is found in the Catholic Church. Because, as was pointed out in the first part of this chapter, the true religion must exist today, and since it does not exist in any of the non-Catholic Churches, it follows unavoidably that it must and does exist in the Catholic Church. This argument is conclusive, even as it stands; but to make assurance doubly sure, we shall now proceed to show that the Catholic Church has that unity of faith which is an essential mark of the true religion.
And, first of all, the Catholic Church possesses most certainly the principle of unity. The one rule of faith admitted and accepted by all Catholics is the infallible Church, handing down and interpreting the truths of Revelation; and this is a principle necessarily directed to bring men's minds into oneness of thought. It is a principle that begets in every mind absolute certainty, for in its last analysis it is the infallible voice of God, independent of human wisdom, though manifested through human agency. The Christ who said to His Apostles: "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world," abides to-day in the Church which He built upon the rock, so that the gates of hell, the powers of error and of falsehood, may not prevail against it. No individual Catholic ever takes it upon himself to decide finally what is, and what is not, revealed truth; that belongs either to a general council presided over by the Pope, or to the Pope himself, when he acts as supreme teacher of all the faithful in matters of faith and morals. Nor does the Pope. whether in union with the council, or acting by himself, speak in these matters simply as a human being, but as the Vicar of Christ, under the special guidance of the Holy Spirit, Who places the seal of His own essential truthfulness upon all doctrinal definitions. Hence the Catholic rule of faith is one and indivisible, the same for all times and for all nations. What is proposed to the belief of one, is proposed to the belief of all; what is once defined as an article of the faith, remains an article of the faith forever. And as each and every one of the faithful is obliged, under pain of immediate separation from the church, to give his full and unconditioned assent to the truth thus defined and proposed, the accepted rule of faith is of its very nature productive of the most perfect unity of belief and oneness of doctrine.
As in principle so also in fact is there found in the Catholic Church the most perfect unity of faith, both successive and simultaneous. There is not a single doctrine, which was accepted by the Apostles and their flocks, that is not so accepted to-day by every Catholic. Neither is there a single truth now held as revealed, which was not also firmly, though perhaps only implicitly, believed in the days of the Apostles. Change of extrinsic conditions has in the lapse of ages called for a fuller declaration and authoritative definition of many truths, but the truths themselves thus explicitly defined were contained in the GospeL preached to the first Christians, and were implicitly accepted by them on the infallible authority of the Apostolic Church. The Deposit of Faith was complete at the death of the last Apostle, and from that Deposit not an iota has ever been removed, nor has an iota ever been added thereto. The present and the past are one in faith, identical in doctrine.
Nor is this unity of faith less perfect as it exists among the faithful of the present day. Go where you will, visit what lands you list; roam from continent to continent, sail to islands most remote: everywhere you will find children of this one church -- you will find them among all peoples and tribes and nations -- the most diverse in language and customs and conditions of life; yet everywhere, and under all conditions, you will find them one in faith, accepting without a moment's hesitation whatsoever Christ's Vicar upon earth proposes to their belief, so that from the hearts and lips of two hundred and seventy million men and women rises heavenward this one sublime act of faith. "O my God, I believe all the sacred truths which Thy Holy Church believes and teaches, because Thou hast revealed them, Who canst not deceive nor be deceived." It is a unity such as Christ prayed for on the eve of His death, when He said: "Holy Father . . . for them also do I pray who shall believe in me . . . that they may be one even as we are one.
Lastly, the Catholic Church lays the most absolute claim to this unity of faith. In matters of revealed truth she grants no liberty of opinion. Any one of her children, be he rich or poor, lay or cleric, king or cardinal, who refuses to say with his whole heart, "I believe all the sacred truths which the Catholic Church believes and teaches," is cut off from her communion and cast aside as a dead member. She carries out to the letter her Divine Founder's behest: "If any man will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as a heathen and a publican."{6} She follows the direction of St. Paul to Titus: "If a man be a heretic admonish him once or twice, and then avoid the man." She says with the same great Apostle to every one of her children: "Though an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel other than that which I have preached unto you, I say let him be anathema."{7} Protestants call this bigotry; yet why do they not fling that term of reproach into the face of St. Paul? Why do they not urge it against Christ? They call it bigotry; and yet can they not see that by so doing they renounce their own claim to unity of faith, and concede that of their rival? Truly they stand condemned out of their own mouth.
Hence whatever way we look, at it, the Catholic Church has certainly unity of faith; its presence is most conspicuous. And again, whatever way we look at it, Protestant Churches have certainly no unity of faith; its absence is most notorious. Yet Christ says in explicit terms that unity of faith is an essential mark of the one true religion which He has established: consequently it follows as a logical necessity that the true religion, of which we are in quest, is none other than that which is found in the Catholic Church.
{1} Epist. 141.
{2} Lib. II. Epist. 202.
{3} Epist. ad Aud. Dudit.
{4} Quoted by C. Coupe, Where is the Church? p. 44.
{5} Quoted by C. Coupe, Where is the Church? pp. 46,47.
{6} Matth. XVI, 17.
{7} Gal. I, 8.