Published with the kind permission of TAN BOOKS AND PUBLISHERS Part I MISSION CHAPTER VII. THAT IN THE CHURCH THERE ARE GOOD AND BAD, PREDESTINATE AND REPROBATE. TO prove the invisibility of the Church each one brings forward his reason; but the most feeble of all is that derived from eternal predestination. Certainly it is with no little artfulness that they turn the spiritual eyes of the militant Church upon eternal predestination, in order that, dazzled by the lightnings of this inscrutable mystery, we may not perceive what lies before us. They say that there are two Churches, one visible and imperfect, the other invisible and perfect, and that the visible can err and can be blown away by the wind of errors and idolatries, the invisible not. And if one ask what is the visible Church, they answer that it is the assemblage of those persons who profess the same faith and Sacraments, which contains bad and good, and is a Church only in name; and that the invisible Church is that which contains only the elect, who are not in the knowledge of men, but are only recognised and seen by God. But we will clearly show that the true Church contains the good and the bad, the reprobate and the elect;----and here are the proofs. (1.) Was not that the true Church which S. Paul called the pillar and ground of truth and the house of the living God (1 Tim. iii 15)? Certainly;----for to be a pillar of truth cannot appertain to an erring and straying Church. Now the Apostle witnesses of this true Church, the house of God, that there are in it vessels unto honour and unto dishonour (2 Tim. ii. 20,) that is, good and bad. (2.) Is not that Church against which the gates of Hell shall not prevail (Matt. xvi. 18) the true Church? Nevertheless there are therein men who have to be loosed from their sins, and others whose sins have to be retained, as Our Lord shows us in the promise and the power He gave to S. Peter in this matter. Those whose sins are retained----are they not wicked and reprobate? Indeed, the reprobate are precisely those whose sins are retained, and by the elect we ordinarily mean those whose sins are pardoned. Now, that those whose sins S. Peter had power to forgive or to retain were in the Church is evident; for them that are outside the Church only God will judge (1 Cor. v. 13). Those therefore of whom S. Peter was to judge were not outside the Church but within, though amongst them there were some reprobate. (3.) And does not Our Lord teach us that when we are offended by some one of our brethren, after having reprehended and corrected him twice, in two different fashions, we should take him to the Church? Tell the Church; and if he will not hear the Church let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican (Matt. xviii. 17). Here one cannot escape---the consequence is inevitable. There is question of one of our brethren who is neither heathen nor publican, but under the discipline and correction of the Church, and consequently member of the Church, and yet there is no inconsistency in his being reprobate, perverse, and obstinate. Not only then do the good belong to the true Church, but the wicked also, until such time as they are cast out from it, unless one would say that the Church to which Our Lord sends us is an erring, sinful, and antichristian Church. This would be too open a blasphemy. (4,) When Our Lord says, * The servant abideth not in the house for ever; but the Son abideth for ever (John viii 35);----is it not the same as if he said that in the house of the Church the elect and the reprobate are for a time? Who can this servant be who abideth not in the house for ever except the one who shall be cast into exterior darkness. And in fact Christ clearly shows that He so understands it when He says immediately before, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. Now this man, though he abide not for ever, yet abideth during such time as he is required for service. S. Paul writes to the Church of God which was at Corinth (1 Cor. i, 2), and yet he wishes them to drive out a certain incestuous man (Ibid. v.) If he be driven out he was there, and if he were there and the Church were the assemblage of the elect, how could they drive him out? The elect cannot be reprobate. But why may we not lay down that the reprobate and wicked are of the true Church, when they can even be pastors and bishops therein? That is certain: is not Judas reprobate? And yet he was Apostle and bishop; according to the Psalmist (cviii 8), and according to S. Peter (Acts i. 1), who says that he had obtained part of the ministry of the apostolate, and according to the whole Gospel, which ever places him in the number of the college of the Apostles. Was not Nicholas of Antioch a deacon like S. Stephen?----and yet many ancient Fathers make no difficulty on that account of considering him an heresiarch; witness, amongst others, Epiphanius, Philostratus, Jerome. And in fact the Nicolaites took occasion from him to recommend their abominations, of whom S. John makes mention in the Apocalypse (ii. 6), as of real heretics. S. Paul declares to the priests of Ephesus that the Holy Ghost had made them bishops to rule the Church of God (Acts xx. 28), but he assures them also that some of their own selves would rise up speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. He speaks to all when he says that the Holy Spirit has made them bishops, and speaks of those very same persons when he says that from amongst them shall schismatics arise. But when should I have finished if I would here heap up the names of all those bishops and prelates who, after having been lawfully placed in this office and dignity, have fallen from their first grace and have died heretics. Who, for a simple priest, ever said anything so holy, so wise, so chaste, so charitable as Origen? No one could read what is written of him by Vincent of Lerins, one of the most judicious and learned of Church writers, no one could ponder over his accursed old age, after a life so admirable and holy, without being filled with compassion, to see this grand and brave pilot,----after so many storms weathered, after so many and such lucrative voyages to Hebrews, Arabs, Chaldreans, Greeks, and Latins,---on his return, full of honour and of spiritual riches, suffer shipwreck and perish in port, on the edge of the tomb! Who would dare to say that he had not been of the true Church, he who had always fought for the Church, and whom the whole Church honoured and held as one of its grandest Doctors? And yet behold him at last a heretic, excommunicate outside the Ark, perishing in the deluge of his own conceit! All this corresponds with the holy word of Our Lord (Matt. xxiii 2), Who considered the Scribes and Pharisees as the true pastors of the true Church of that time, since He commands that they should be obeyed, and yet considered them not as elect but rather as reprobate. Now what an absurdity would it be, I ask you, if the elect alone were of the Church? That would follow which is said of the Donatists, that we could not know our prelates, and consequently could not pay them obedience. For how should we know whether those who were called prelates and pastors were of the Church, since we cannot know who of the living is predestinate and who is not, as will be said elsewhere?----and if they are not of the Church, how can they hold the place of elect there? It would indeed be one of the strangest monsters that could be seen----if the head of the Church were not of the Church. Not only then can one who is reprobate be of the Church but even pastor in the Church. The Church then cannot be called invisible on the ground that it is composed of the predestinate alone. I conclude all this discourse by the Gospel comparisons which show this truth clearly and completely. S. John likens the Church to the threshing-floor of a farm, on which is not only the wheat for the barn, but also the chaff to be burnt with unquenchable fire (Matt. iii. 12); are these not the elect and the reprobate? Our Lord compares it to a net cast into the sea, and gathering together of all kind of fishes, good and bad (Ibid. xiii. 47); to ten virgins, five of them foolish and five wise (Ibid. xxv. 2); to three servants, one of whom is slothful, and therefore cast into the exterior darkness (Ibid. 14); finally, to a marriage-feast, unto which have entered both good and bad, and the bad, not having on the nuptial garment, are cast into exterior darkness (Ibid. xxii.) Are not all these as many sufficient proofs that not only the elect but also the reprobate are in the Church? We must therefore close the door of our judgment to all sorts of notions of this kind, and to this one amongst them, by means of that never-enough-pondered proposition: Many are, called, but few are chosen (Ibid.) All those who are in the Church are called, but all who are therein are not elect; and indeed Church does not mean election but convocation. * In a detached note elsewhere the Saint draws special attention to the force of this text. "From this," he says, "it is conclusively shown that there are sinners in the Church," And he proceeds to give an argument from the utility of their presence. "Those passages of the Psalm (cxviii.), Thou hast made me wise over my enemies, then, over all my teachers, then, over ancients, etc., prove that we can gain excellent knowledge and profit from our enemies, For, by over (super), in the expression over my enemies, may be understood, says Genebrard, by occasion of my enemies, from or out of my enemies. And since the being made wise by means of enemies is put before the being made wise by means of elders or teachers, it rightly follows that we have richer sources of knowledge in the school of enemies than in that of teachers," etc. HOME----------CATHOLIC CLASSICS www.catholictradition.org/Classics/controversy1-7.htm