All Christians Are Not Members of the Church
Against what has already been said the objection is raised (i) that if the treatment is correct then no reprobate would be a part of our holy mother, the universal church. But the consequence is false, for every Christian is a part of that church, as appears from the parable, Matt. 13 : 47: “The kingdom of heaven is like unto a net cast into the sea which gathered in all manner of fish.” On this St. Gregory in his Homilies [Migne, 76 : 1116] says: “The holy church is compared to a net cast into the sea because she is committed to fishers and because every one is drawn up through her from the waves of this present world to the eternal kingdom lest they sink in the depths of eternal death.” (2) The falsehood of the treatment is confirmed by Matt. 22 : 2: “The kingdom of heaven is likened to a king, who made a marriage feast for his son and sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the marriage feast.” Going out, they gathered in all whom they found, both good and bad, and the marriage feast was full of guests. Here Gregory says: “By the very quality of the guests it is evident that by this royal marriage the present church is meant, in which the bad meet with the good, a mixed church made up of a diversity of children.” 1 (3) It is confirmed by what is said, Matt. 13 : 41, “The Son of man shall send forth his angels and gather together out of his kingdom all things that offend and them that do iniquity”; and (4) by Matt. 5 : 20: “Whoso shall
1 Migne, 76 : 1285. Gregory continues by saying that, though the church brings forth to faith, nevertheless she does not lead all to the liberty of spiritual grace, etc.
ALL CHRISTIANS ARE NOT MEMBERS 17 break one of the least of these commandments and teach men so, shall be least in the kingdom of heaven.” Commenting on both these passages, Gregory, homily 12, says: “The kingdom of heaven is the present church” [Migne, 76 : 11 19].
(5) The falsehood appears f rom Luke 3 : 1 7 : ” He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire : whose fan is in his hand, and he will cleanse his threshing-floor and gather the wheat into his garner; but the chafl he will burn with fire unquenchable.” Here threshing-floor stands for the catholic church as the doctors expound, especiaUy Augustine, who says of faith, ad Petrum: “Hold most tenaciously and in no wise doubt that God’s threshing-floor is the catholic church and that in it the chaff will remain mixed with the wheat till the end of the world.”1 And this judgment of Augustine is confirmed by Christ’s words: “The kingdom of heaven is like unto a man who sows good seed in his field,” and Christ afterward says: “Let both grow until the harvest,” Matt. 13 : 30.
Now for the right understanding of these things and the things to be said, we must lay down out of the apostle’s words that Christ is the head of the universal church, that she is
1 The quotation is taken from the de fide ad Petrum sive de regula vera fidei, wrongly ascribed to Augustine, but printed by Migne, 40 : 753-780, in the Appendix to Augustine’s works, and with a Preface stating its genuineness to be a matter of doubt. The work was written by Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspe, in North Africa, not far from Carthage, d. about 533; a vigorous writer against Arianism and semi-Pelagianism. The treatise was addressed to Peter the Deacon, and not to Peter the Apostle, as Huss seems to think. For Peter the Deacon who was sent on a mission to Pope Hormisdas, see Wetzer-Welte, 9 : 1907 sq. The treatise is a high church document, and is quoted at least three times in the Corp. jur. can., and under the name of Augustine, viz., C. 1 : 1, 55; C. 15 : 1, 3; de consol., D. 4 : 3, Friedberg, 1 : 379, 746, 1376. The writer follows up the words cited above by saying: “The wicked are mixed with the good in the communion of the sacraments; and in every profession, whether it be the profession of clerics, monastics, or laics, the wicked and the good are mingled… . The wicked are to be tolerated for the sake of the good so far as the reason of faith and love demand.” Fulgentius declared that ” A heretic or a schismatic, though they had been baptized in the name of the Trinity, are outside the catholic church, no matter how much they might give in charity and even though they sweat blood for the name of Christ, yet they could not be saved unless they became incorporated into the catholic church,” p. 776.
his body and that every one who is predestinate is one of her members and consequently a part of this church, which is Christ’s mystical body, that is, hidden body, ruled by the power and influence of Christ, the Head, and compacted and welded together by the bond of predestination. This underlying proposition follows from that saying of the apostle: “He gave him to be head over all the church which is his body,” Eph. i : 22. It also follows from the words when, speaking as the representative of the predestinate, he says: “We being many are one body in Christ,” Romans 12:5. It also follows from Eph. 4:11,15: ” He gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry unto the edifying of the body of Christ.” And further on it is said: “Doing the truth in love, let us grow up in all things into him who is the head, even Christ, for whom all the body compacted together by that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in the measure of each several part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.”