Published with the kind permission of TAN BOOKS AND PUBLISHERS Part I MISSION CHAPTER IV. AN ANSWER TO THE TWO OBJECTIONS WHICH ARE MADE BY THE SUPPORTERS OF THE THEORY OF IMMEDIATE MISSION. I HAVE not been able hitherto to find but two objections amongst your masters to this reasoning which I have just made, one of which is taken from the example of Our Lord and the Apostles, the other from the example of the Prophets. And as to the first----tell me, I pray, do you think it right to place in comparison the vocation of these new ministers and that of Our Lord? Had not Our Lord been prophesied as the Messias?----had not His time been determined by Daniel?----did He do a single action which had not been described almost exactly in the books of the Prophets, and prefigured in the Patriarchs? He changed the Mosaic law from good into better:----but had not this change been predicted? He consequently changed the Aaronic priesthood into that of Melchisedech, far better: is not all this according to the ancient testimonies? Your ministers have not been prophesied as preachers of the word of God, nor the time of their coming, nor a single one of their actions. They have made a revolution in the Church much greater and bolder than Our Lord made in the synagogue; for they have taken all away, only putting back certain shadows: but testimonies to this effect have they none. At any rate they should not elude their obligation of bringing forward miracles in support of such a change, whatever pretext you may draw from the Scriptures, since Our Lord dispensed not Himself from this, as I have shown above. But whence will they show me that the Church was ever to receive another form, or a like reformation to the one which our Lord made? And as to the Prophets, I see many persons under a delusion. It is supposed that all the vocations of the Prophets were extraordinary and immediate. A false idea: for there were colleges and congregations of the Prophets approved by the Synagogue, as may be gathered from many passages of the Scriptures. There were such in Ramatha, in Bethel, in Jericho where Eliseus dwelt, on Mount Ephraim, in Samaria; Eliseus himself was anointed by Heli; the vocation of Samuel was recognised and approved by the High Priest; and with Samuel the Lord began to appear again in Silo, as says the Scripture: [1 Kings iii. 21] whence the Jews regard Samuel as the founder of the congregations of Prophets. It is supposed that all those who prophesied exercised the office of preaching;----which is not true, as appears from what occurred with the officers of Saul and with Saul himself: [Ibid. xix]  in such sort that the vocation of the Prophets has no bearing on that of heretics or schismatics. For (1.) it was either ordinary, as we have shown above, or else approved by the remainder of the Synagogue, as is easy to see in their being immediately recognised, and in their being highly esteemed everywhere amongst the Jews, who called them "men of God:" and he who will attentively examine the history of that ancient Synagogue will see that the office of priests was as common among them as that of preachers amongst us. (2.) Never can be pointed out a Prophet who wished to overthrow the ordinary power; on the contrary, all followed it, and spoke nothing contrary to the doctrine of those who sat upon the chair of Moses and of Aaron; indeed, some of them were of the priestly race, as Jeremias son of Helcias, and Ezechiel son of Buzi. They have always spoken with honour of the priests and the sacerdotal succession, though they have reprehended their lives. Isaias, when about to write in a great book which was shown him, took Urias the priest, though the things were yet to come, and Zacharias the prophet as witnesses, [lsa. viii. 1, 2] as if he were taking the testimony of all the Priests and Prophets. And does not Malachy bear witness [ii. 7] that the lips of the priest shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law at his mouth: because he is the Angel of the Lord of hosts?----so far were they from ever having withdrawn the Jews from the communion of the Ordinary. (3). How many miracles did the Prophets work in confirmation of the prophetic vocation? I should never end if I were to enter upon the computation of these: but at such times as they did a thing which had an appearance of extraordinary power, immediately miracles followed. Witness Elias, who, setting up an altar on Mount Carmel according to the instinct which the Holy Spirit had given him, and offering sacrifice, showed by miracle that he did it to the honour of God and of the Jewish religion. (4.) And finally, it would well become your ministers to usurp the power of the Prophets----they who have never had either their gift or their light? It should rather be for us to do so;----for us, who could bring forward an infinity of Prophets on our side. For instance, S. Gregory Thaumaturgus, on the authority of S. Basil; S. Anthony, on the testimony of Athanasius; the Abbot John, on the testimony of S. Augustine; S. Benedict, S. Bernard, S. Francis, and a thousand others. If, then, there is question between us of the prophetic authority, this is on our side, be it ordinary or be it extraordinary, since we have the reality; not with your ministers, who have never given the shadow of a proof of its possession;----unless they would call a prophecy Zwingle's vision in the book called Subsidium de Eucharistiâ, and the book entitled Querela Lutherii, or the prediction he made in the twenty-fifth year of this century that if he preached two years more there would remain no Pope, nor priests, nor monks, nor belfries, nor Mass. Truly there is but one defect in this prophecy----just want of truth. For he preached nigh twenty-two years longer, and yet there are still found priests and belfries, and in the chair of Peter sits a lawful Pope. Your first ministers then, gentlemen, are of the prophets whom God forbade to be heard, in Jeremias xxiii: Hearken not to the words of the prophets that prophesy to you and deceive you: they speak a vision of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord.  . . . I did not send prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied . . . I have heard what the prophets said, that prophecy lies in my name, and say, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. Does it not seem to you that it is Zwingle and Luther, with their prophecies and visions? that it is Carlostadt, with his revelation which he pretended to have had about the Lord's Supper, and which gave occasion to Luther to write his book Contra scelestos prophetas. At any rate they certainly possess this property of not having been sent; it is they who use their tongues, and say, The Lord saith it. For they can never prove any right to the office which they usurp; they can never produce any legitimate vocation. And how then shall they preach? One cannot enroll oneself under any captain without the approval of one's prince: how then were you so ready to engage yourselves under the command of these first ministers, without the permission of your ordinary pastors, and so far as to leave the state in which you were born and bred, which is the Catholic Church? They are guilty of having made this disturbance by their own authority, and you of having followed them, in which you are inexcusable. The good little Samuel, humble, gentle, and holy, having been called thrice by God, thought all the time that it was Heli who was calling him, and only at the fourth time addressed himself to God as to the One calling him. It has seemed to your ministers that God has thrice called them, (1.) by peoples and magistrates; (2.) by our bishops; (3.) by His extraordinary voice. No, no! Let them not bring this forward, that Samuel was called thrice by God, and in his humility thought it was a call by man, until, instructed by Heli, he knew that it was the Divine voice. Your ministers, gentlemen, allege three vocations of God, by secular magistrates, by the bishops, and by His extraordinary voice. They think that it is God Who has called them in those three ways: but you do not find that when they are instructed by the Church they acknowledge that theirs is a vocation of man, and that their ears have tingled to the old Adam; by no means do they submit the question to Him who, as Heli did, now presides in the Church. Such then is the first reason which makes your ministers and you also inexcusable, though unequally so, before God and men in having left the Church. On the contrary, gentlemen, the Church, who contradicted and opposed your first ministers, and still opposes those of the present day, is so clearly marked on all sides that no one, blind as he may be, can pretend that his is a case of ignorance of the duty which all good Christians owe her, or that she is not the true, sole, inseparable, and dearest Spouse of the heavenly King, which makes the separation from her all the more inexcusable. For, to leave the Church and disregard her commands is evermore to become a heathen and a publican, let it be at the persuasion of an Angel or a seraph. But, at the persuasion of men who were sinners on the largest scale against other private persons, who were without authority, without approval, without any quality required in preachers or prophets save the mere knowledge of certain sciences, to break all the ties of the most religious obligation of obedience which is in the world, namely, that which is owing to the Church as Spouse of our Lord!----this is a fault which cannot be covered save by a great repentance and penitence----to which I invite you on the part of the living God. HOME----------CATHOLIC CLASSICS www.catholictradition.org/Classics/controversy1-4.htm