Tract No. 20 (Ad Scholas)
The Visible Church
Letters to a Friend No. III.
{1} YOU
have some misgivings, it seems, lest the doctrine I have been advocating
"should lead to Popery." I will not, by way of answer, say that the
question is not, whether it will lead to Popery, but whether it
is in the Bible; because it would bring the Bible and Popery into
one sentence, and seem to imply the possibility of a "communion" between
"light and darkness." No; it is the very enmity I feel against the
Papistical corruptions of the Gospel, which leads me to press upon you a
doctrine of Scripture, which we are sinfully surrendering, and the
Church of Rome has faithfully retained.
How comes it that a system, so unscriptural as the
Popish, makes converts? because it has in it an element of truth and
comfort amid its falsehoods. And the true way of opposing it, is, not to
give up to them that element, which GOD'S
providence has preserved to us also, thus basely surrendering "the
inheritance of our Fathers," but to claim it as our own, and to make use
of it for the purposes for which GOD
has given it to us. I will explain what I mean.
Before CHRIST came, Divine Truth was, as it were, a pilgrim in the world.
The Jews excepted, men who had portions of the SPIRIT of GOD, knew not their privilege. The whole force
and current of the external world was against them, acting powerfully on
their imagination, and tempting them to set sight against faith, to
trust the many witnesses who prophesied falsehood (as if) in the name of
the LORD,
rather than the still small voice which spoke within them. Who can
undervalue the power of this fascination, who has had experience of the
world ever so little? Who can go at this day into mixed society, who can
engage in politics or other active business, and not find himself
gradually drifting off from the true Rock on which his faith is built,
till he begins in despair to fancy, that solitude is the only safe place
for the Christian, or, (with a baser judgment,) that strict obedience
will not be required at the last day of those who have been engaged in
active life? If such is now the power of the world's enchantments,
surely much greater was it before our SAVIOUR came.
Now what did He do for us, in order to meet this
evil? His merciful Providence chose means which might act as a
counter-influence on the imagination. The visible power of the world
enthralled men to a lie; He set up a Visible Church, to witness the
other way, to witness for Him, to be a matter of fact, as undeniable as
the shining of the sun, that there was such a principle as
conscience in the world, as faith, as fear of GOD;
that there were {2} men who considered themselves bound to live
as His servants. The common answer which we hear made every day to
persons who engage in any novel undertaking, is, "You will get no one to
join you; nothing can come of it; you are singular in your opinion; you
do not take practical views, but are smit with a fancy, with a dream of
former times," &c. How cheering it is to a person so circumstanced,
to be able to point to others elsewhere, who actually hold the same
opinions as himself, and exert themselves for the same objects! Why?
because it is an appeal to a fact, which no one can deny; it is
an evidence that the view which influences him is something external to
his own mind, and not a dream. What two persons see, cannot be an ideal
apparition. Men are governed by such facts much more than by
argumentative proof. These act upon the imagination. Let a person be
told ten times over that an opinion is true, the fact of its
being said becomes an argument for the truth of it; i.e. it is so
with most men. We see from time to time the operation of this principle
of our nature in political matters. Our American colonies revolt; France
feels the sympathy of the event, and is revolutionized. Again, in the
same colonies, the Episcopal Church flourishes; we Churchmen at home
hail it as an omen of the Church's permanence among ourselves. On the
other hand, what can be more dispiriting than to find a cause, which we
advocate, sinking in some other country or neighbourhood, though there
be no reason for concluding, that, because it has fallen
elsewhere, therefore it will among ourselves. In order then to supply
this need of our minds, to satisfy the imagination, and so to help our
faith, for this among other reasons CHRIST
set up a visible Society, His Church, to be as a light upon a hill, to
all the ends of the earth, while time endures. It is a witness of the
unseen world; a pledge of it; and a prefiguration of what hereafter will
take place. It prefigures the ultimate separation of good and bad, holds
up the great laws of GOD'S
Moral Governance, and preaches the blessed truths of the Gospel. It
pledges to us the promises of the next world, for it is something (so to
say) in hand; CHRIST
has done one work as the earnest of another. And it witnesses the truth
to the whole world; awing sinners, while it enspirits the fainting
believer. And in all these ways it helps forward the world to come; and
further, as the keeper of the Sacraments, it is an essential means of
the realizing it at present in our fallen race. Nor is it much to the
purpose, as regards our duty towards it, what are the feelings and
spiritual state of the individuals who are its officers. True it is,
were the Church to teach heretical doctrine, it might become incumbent
on us (a miserable obligation!) to separate from it. But, while it
teaches substantially the Truth, we ought to look upon it as one whole,
one ordinance of GOD,
not as composed of individuals, but as a house of GOD'S building;—as an instrument in His hand,
to be used and reverenced for the sake of its Maker.
Now the Papists have retained it; and so they have
the advantage {3} of possessing an instrument, which is, in the first
place, suited to the needs of human nature; and next, is a special gift
of CHRIST,
and so has a blessing with it. Accordingly we see that in its measure
success follows their zealous use of it. They act with great force upon
the imaginations of men. The vaunted antiquity, the universality, the
unanimity of their Church puts them above the varying fashions of the
world, and the religious novelties of the day. And truly when one
surveys the grandeur of their system, a sigh arises in the thoughtful
mind, to think that we should be separate from them; Cum talis esses,
utinam noster esses!—But, alas! AN UNION IS IMPOSSIBLE. Their communion is
infected with heterodoxy; we are bound to flee it, as a pestilence. They
have established a lie in the place of GOD'S truth and, by their claim of immutability in doctrine,
cannot undo the sin they have committed. They cannot repent. Popery must
be destroyed; it cannot be reformed.
Now then what is the Christian to do? Is he forced
back upon that cheerless atheism (for so it practically must be
considered) which prevailed in the world before CHRIST'S
coming, poorly alleviated, as it was, by the received polytheisms of the
heathen? Can we conceive a greater calamity to have occurred at the time
of our Reformation, one which the Enemy of man would have been more set
on effecting, than to have entangled the whole of the Church Catholic in
the guilt of heterodoxy, and so have forced every one who worshipped in
spirit and in truth, to flee out of doors into the bleak world, in order
to save his soul? I do not think that Satan could have desired any event
more eagerly, than such an alternative; viz. to have forced Christians,
either to remain in communion with error, or to join themselves in some
such spontaneous union among themselves, as is dissolved as easily as it
is formed. Blessed be GOD! his malice has been thwarted. I do
believe it to be one most conspicuous mark of GOD'S adorable Providence over us, as great as
if we saw a miracle, that Christians in England escaped in the evil day
from either extreme, neither corrupted doctrinally, nor secularized
ecclesiastically. Thus in every quarter of the world, from North America
to New South Wales, a Zoar has been provided for those who would fain
escape Sodom, yet dread to be without shelter. I hail it as an omen amid
our present perils, that our Church will not be destroyed. He hath been
mindful of us; He will bless us. He has wonderfully preserved our Church
as a true branch of the Church universal, yet withal preserved it free
from doctrinal error. It is Catholic and Apostolic, yet not Papistical.
With this reflection before us, does it not seem to
be utter ingratitude to an astonishing Providence of GOD'S mercy, to be neglectful, as many
Churchmen now are, of the gift; to attempt unions with those who have
separated from the Church, to break down the partition walls, and to
argue as if religion were altogether and only a matter of each man's
private concern, and that the {4} State and Nation were not bound to
prefer the Apostolical Church to all self-originated forms of
Christianity? But this is a point beside my purpose. Take the matter
merely in the light of human expedience. Shall we be so far less wise in
our generation than the children of this world, as to relinquish the
support which the Truth receives from the influence of a visible Church
upon the imagination, from the energy of operation which a well
disciplined Body ensures? Shall we not foil the Papists, not with their
own weapons, but with weapons which are ours as well as theirs? or, on
the other hand, shall we with a melancholy infatuation give them up to
them? Depend upon it, to insist on the doctrine of the Visible Church is
not to favour the Papists, it is to do them the most serious injury. It
is to deprive them of their only strength. But if we neglect to do so,
what will be the consequence? Break down the Divine Authority of our
Apostolical Church, and you are plainly preparing the way for Popery in
our land. Human nature cannot remain without visible guides; it chooses
them for itself, if it is not provided for them. If the Aristocracy and
the Church fall, Popery steps in. Political events are beyond our power,
and perhaps out of our sphere; but ecclesiastical matters are in the
hands of all Churchmen.
OXFORD,
Dec. 24, 1833.
[SIXTH EDITION.]
———————————————————————
These Tracts are continued in
Numbers, and sold at the price of 2d. for each sheet, or 7s. for 50
copies.
LONDON: PRINTED FOR
J. G. F. & J. RIVINGTON,
ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE.
1840.
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