Objection:—Catholics as Divided as Protestants
Human Nature
Nationality
Religious Orders
Church Teaches way to Salvation
History Proves Unity of Church
Heresies connected with Doctrine of Incarnation
Jansenism1
I AM going today to take notice of an objection to the claims of that great Communion, into which, my brethren, I am inviting you, which to me sounds so feeble and unworthy, that I am loth to take it for my subject; for an answer, if corresponding to it, must be trifling and uninteresting also, and if careful and exact, will be but a waste of effort. I, therefore, do not know what to do with it: treat it with respect I cannot; yet since it is frequently, nay, triumphantly, urged by those who wish to make the most of such difficulties as they can bring together against our claims, I do not like to pass it over. Bear with me then, my brethren, nay, I may say, sympathize with me, if you find that the subject is not one which is very fertile in profitable reflection.
1.
When, then, the variations of Protestantism, or the divisions in the Establishment, are urged as a reason for your distrusting the Communion in which they are found, it is answered, that divisions as serious and as decided are to be found in the Catholic Church. It is a well-known point in controversy, to say that the Catholic Church has not any real unity more than Protestantism; for, if Lutherans are divided in creed from Calvinists, and both from Anglicans, and the various denominations of Dissenters each has its own doctrine and its own interpretation, yet Dominicans and Franciscans, Jesuits and Jansenists, have had their quarrels too. Nay, that at this moment the greatest alienation, rivalry, and difference of opinion exist among the members of the Catholic priesthood, so that the Church is but nominally one, and her pretended unity resolves itself into nothing more specious than an awkward and imperfect uniformity. This is what is said: and, I repeat, my answer to it cannot contain anything either new or important, or even satisfactory to myself. However, since I must enter upon the subject, I must make the best of it; so let me begin with an extract from Jewel’s Apology, in which the objection is to be found.
“Who are these,” he says, “that find fault with dissensions among us? Are they all agreed among themselves? Hath every one of them determined, to his own satisfaction, what he should follow? Have there been no differences, no disputes among them? Then why do not the Scotists and the Thomists come to a more perfect agreement touching the merit of congruity and condignity, touching original sin in the Blessed Virgin, and the obligations of simple and solemn vows? Why do the Canonists affirm auricular confession to be of human and positive, and the Schoolmen, on the contrary, maintain that it is of divine right? Why does Albertus Pighius differ from Cajetan, Thomas Aquinas from Peter Lombard, Scotus from Thomas Aquinas, Occham from Scotus, Peter D’Ailly from Occham, the Nominalists from the Realists? And, not to mention the infinite dissensions of the friars and monks (how some of them place their holiness in the eating of fish, others in herbs; some in wearing of shoes, others in sandals; some in linen garments, others in woollen; some go in white, some in black; some are shaven broader, some narrower; some shod, some barefoot; some girded, others ungirded), they should remember that some of their own adherents say, that the body of Christ is in the Lord’s supper naturally; that others again, of their own party, teach the very reverse: that there are some who affirm that the body of Christ in the Holy Communion is torn and ground with our teeth; others again there are who deny it: that there are some who say that the body of Christ in the Eucharist hath quantity; and others again deny it: that there are some who say that Christ consecrated the bread and wine by the special putting forth of His divine power; others, that He consecrated in the benediction: some, by the conceiving the five words in His mind; others, by His uttering them: others there are who, in these five words, refer the demonstrative pronoun ‘this’ to the wheaten bread; others to what they call an individuum vagum: some there are who affirm that dogs and mice can verily and truly eat the body of Christ; others there are who do not hesitate to deny it; some there are who say that the very accidents of the bread and wine give nourishment; others, that the substance of bread and wine returns after consecration. And why should we bring forward more? It would be only tedious and burdensome to enumerate them all; so unsettled and disputed is yet the whole form of these men’s religion and doctrine even among themselves, from whom it sprang and proceeded. For scarcely ever are they agreed together, unless, as of old, the Pharisees and Sadducees were, or Herod and Pilate, against Christ.”