Objection:—Many Christians not Catholic
Argument rests on Greek Church
Different means of opposing Truth
Parallels to Greek Church:
Goths
Nestorians
Explanation lies in Human Nature
And Hereditary Faith
Hope for Heretics and Schismatics
Persons who inspire Anxiety1
1.
There is no objection made at this time to the claims of the Catholic Church more imposing to the imagination, yet less tenable in the judgment of reason, than that which is grounded on there being at present so many nations and races, which have kept the name of Christian, yet given up Catholicism. If fecundity has ever been considered one of the formal notes or tokens of the Mother of souls, it is fair to look out for it now; and if it has told in favour of the communion of Rome in former times, so now surely it may be plausibly made to tell against it. It would seem as if in this age of the world the whole number of anti-Catholics were nearly equal to the number of Catholics, at least so our opponents say; and I am willing, for argument’s sake, to grant it. Let it be so, or, in other words, let it be assumed that scarcely more than half of Christendom subjects itself to the Catholic Church. “Is it not preposterous, then,” it is asked of us, “to claim to be the whole, when you are but a moiety? And with what countenance can you demand that we should unhesitatingly and withoutdelay leave our own Communion for yours, when there is so little to show at first sight that you have more pretensions to the Christian name than we have?”
This is the argument, put in its broadest, simplest shape; and you, my brethren, would like to avail yourselves of it just as I have stated it, if you could. But you cannot; for it puts together all creeds and opinions, all communions, whatever their origin and history, and adds up the number of their members in rivalry of that of the Church’s children. You would do so if you could, as your forefathers did before you; two centuries ago Archbishop Bramhall did so, and you have every good wish to copy him, as in his other representations, so in this. “We hold communion,” he says, speaking of the Church of England in contrast with those whom he would call Romanists, “with thrice so many Catholic Christians as they do; that is, the eastern, southern, and northern Christians, besides Protestants.” 1 “Divide Christendom into five parts, and in four of them they have very little or nothing to do. Perhaps they have here a monastery, or there a small handful of proselytes; but what are five or six persons to so many millions of Christian souls, that they should be Catholics, and not all the others?” 2 This being the case, as he views the matter, it of course follows that we are but successors of the ancient Donatists, a mere fraction of the Church excommunicating all the rest. “The Donatists,” he says, “separated the whole Church from their Communion, and substituted themselves, being but a small part of the Christian world, in the place of the Catholic Church, just as the Romanists do at this day. ” 3
This, certainly, was turning the tables against his opponents, who had been accustomed to consider that the Church of England, granting it was a Church, was in the very position of the followers of Donatus, a fragment of Christendom claiming for itself immaculate purity; but let us observe what he is forced to do to make his argument good. First, of course, he throws himself into communion, whether they will have him or not, not only with the Greek Church, but with the various heretical bodies all over the East; the Nestorians of Chaldæa, the Copts of Egypt, the Jacobites of Syria, and the Eutychians of Armenia, whose heresy in consequence he finds it most expedient to doubt. “Those Churches,” he says, speaking of the East, “do agree better, both among themselves and with other churches, than the Roman Church itself, both in profession of faith (for they and we do generally acknowledge the same ancient Creeds, and no other) and in inferior questions, being free from the intricate and perplexed difficulties of the Roman schools … How are they ‘heretical’ Churches? Some of them are called Nestorians, but most injuriously, who have nothing of Nestorius but the name. Others have been suspected of Eutychianism, and yet in truth orthodox enough … It is no new thing for great quarrels to arise from mere mistakes.” 4 Elsewhere he says: “It is true that some few Eastern Christians, in comparison of those innumerable multitudes, are called Nestorians; and some others, by reason of some unusual expression, suspected of Eutychianism, but both most wrongfully. Is this the requital that he,” that is, his Catholic opponent, “makes to so many of these poor Christians, for maintaining their religion inviolated so many ages under Mahometan princes?” 5