Published with the kind permission of TAN BOOKS AND PUBLISHERS Part I MISSION CHAPTER VIII. ANSWER TO THE OBJECTIONS OF THOSE WHO WOULD HAVE THE CHURCH TO CONSIST OF THE PREDESTINATE ALONE. WHERE will they find the Scripture passage which, can furnish them any excuse for so many absurdities, and against proofs so clear as those we have I given? Yet counter-reasons are not wanting in this matter: never does obstinacy leave its followers without them. Will they then bring forward what is written in the Canticles (iv.) concerning the Spouse; how she is a garden enclosed, a fountain or spring sealed up, a well of living waters, how she is all fair and there is not a spot in her; or, as the Apostle says, how she is glorious, not having spot or wrinkle, holy, without blemish (Eph. v. 27)? I earnestly beg them to consider the conclusion they wish to draw, namely, that there can be in the Church none but Saints, immaculate, faultless, glorious. I will, with the same passages, show them that in the Church there are neither elect nor reprobate. For is it not the humble but truthful saying, as the great Council of Trent declares, of all the just and elect, Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. I suppose S. James was elect, and yet he confesses (iii 2), In many things we all offend. S. John closes our mouth and the mouth of all the elect, so that no one may boast of being without sin; on the contrary, he will have each one know and confess that he sins (1 John i). I believe that David in his rapture and ecstasy knew what the elect are, and yet he considered every man to be a liar (Ps. cxv. 11). If then these holy qualities given to the Spouse, the Church, are to be taken precisely, and if there is to be no spot or wrinkle anywhere in it, we must go out of this world to find the verification of these fair titles, the elect of this world will not be able to claim them. Let us then make the truth clear. (1.) The Church as a whole is entirely fair, holy, glorious, both as to morals and as to doctrine. Morals depend on the will, doctrine on the understanding. Into the understanding of the Church there never entered falseness, nor wickedness into her will. By the grace of her Spouse she can say with Him, Which of you, O sworn enemies, shall convince me of sin? (John viii. 46) And yet it does not follow that in the Church there are no sinners. Remember what I have said to you elsewhere: the Spouse has hair, and nails, which are not living though she is living; the senate is sovereign, but not each senator; the army is victorious, but not each soldier----it wins the battle while many of its soldiers are killed. In this way is the militant Church always glorious, ever victorious over the gates and powers of Hell, although many of her members, either straying and thrown into disorder like yourselves, are cut to pieces and destroyed, or by other mishaps are wounded and die within her. Take then one after another the grand praises of the Church which are scattered throughout the Scriptures and make her a crown out of them, for they are richly due to her; just as maledictions are due to those who being in so excellent a way are lost. She is an army set in array (Cant. vi 9), though some fall out of her ranks. (2.) But who knows not how often that is attributed to a whole body which belongs only to one of the parts? The Spouse calls her beloved white and ruddy; but immediately she says his locks are black (Ibid. v. 10, 11). S. Matthew says (xxvii. 44) that the thieves who were crucified with Our Saviour blasphemed Him, whereas it was only one of them who did so, as S. Luke relates (xxiii 39). We say that lilies are white, but there are yellow and there are green. He who speaks the language of love readily uses such expressions, and the Canticles are the chaste expressions of love. All these qualities then are justly attributed to the Church on account of the many holy souls therein who most exactly observe the holy Commandments of God, and are perfect----with the perfection that may be had in this pilgrimage, not with that which we hope for in our blessed fatherland. (3.) Moreover, though there were no other reason for thus describing the Church than the hope she has of ascending, all pure, all beautiful, to Heaven above, the fact that this is the sole term towards which she aspires and runs, would suffice to let her be called glorious and perfect, especially while she has so many fair pledges of this holy hope. He would never end who should take notice of all the trifles which they stay examining here, and on which they raise a thousand false alarms amongst the poor common people. They bring forward that of S. John (x.); I know My sheep, and no one shall snatch them out of My hand: and they say that those sheep are the predestinate, who alone belong to the fold of the Lord. They bring forward what S. Paul says to Timothy (2 Tim. ii. 19): The Lord knows who are His; and what S. John has said to apostates: they went out from us, but they were not of us (1 John ii. 19). But what difficulty is there in all this? We admit that the predestinate sheep hear the voice of their pastor, and have sooner or later all the qualities which are described in S. John; but he also maintains that in the Church, which is the fold of Our Lord, there are not only sheep but also goats. Otherwise, why should it be said that at the end of the world, in the Judgment, the sheep shall be separated, unless because, until the Judgment, whilst the Church is in this world, she has within herself goats with the sheep? Certainly if they had never been together they would never be separated. And in the last instance, if the predestinate are called sheep, so also are the reprobate. Witness David: Why is thy wrath enkindled against the sheep of thy pasture? (Ps. lxxiii. 1). I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost (cxviii. ult.). And elsewhere, where he says: Give ear, O thou that rulest Israel; thou that leadest Joseph like a sheep (lxxix. 1):----when he says Joseph, he means those of Joseph, and the Israelitish people, because to Joseph was given the primogeniture, and the eldest gives the name to the race. But who knows not that among the people of Israel everyone was not predestinate or elect, and yet they are called sheep, and all are together under one shepherd. We confess then that there are sheep saved and predestinated, of whom it is spoken in S. John: there are others damned, of whom it is spoken elsewhere, and all are in the same flock. Isaias (liii. 6) compares all men, both the reprobate and the elect, to sheep: All we like sheep have gone astray; and in verse 7 he similarly compares Our Saviour: He shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter. And so throughout the whole of c. xxxiv. of Ezechiel, where there is no doubt but that the whole people of Israel are called sheep, over which David has to reign (v. 23). And in the same way,----who denies that Our Lord knows those who are His? He knew certainly what would become of Judas, yet Judas was not therefore not one of his Apostles. He knew what would become of those disciples who went back (John vi. 67) on account of the doctrine of the real eating of His flesh, and yet He received them as disciples. It is a quite different thing to belong to God according to the eternal foreknowledge, as regards the Church Triumphant, and to belong to God according to the present communion of Saints for the Church Militant. The first are known only to God, the latter are known to God and to men. "According to the eternal foreknowledge," says S. Augustine, [In J. lxv.] "how many wolves are within; how many sheep without!" Our Lord then knows those who are His for His Triumphant Church, but besides these there are many others in the Militant Church whose end will be perdition, as the same Apostle shows when he says that in a great house there are all sorts of vessels and utensils, some indeed unto honour, but some into dishonour (2 Tim. ii. 20). So, what S. John says: They have gone out from amongst us, but they were not of us, is nothing to the purpose. For I will say, as S. Augustine said: They were with us numero, but they were not with us merito: that is, as the same Doctor says, [Ib. lxi.]  "they were with us and were ours by the Communion of the Sacraments, but according to their own individual vices they were not so." They were already heretics in their soul and will, though they were not so after the external appearance. And this is not to say that the good are not with the bad in the Church: on the contrary indeed, how could they go out of the company of the Church if they were not in it? They were doubtless in it actually, but in will they were already without. Finally, here is an argument which seems to be complete in form and in figure. "He has not God for Father who has not the Church for mother;" [Cyp. de unit. Eccl. v.] that is certain: similarly he who has not God for Father has not the Church for mother; most certainly: now the reprobate have not God for Father, therefore they have not the Church for mother; and consequently the reprobate are not in the Church. But the answer is this. We accept the first foundation of this reason; but the second----that the reprobate are not children of God----requires to be well-sifted. All the faithful Baptized can be called sons of God, so long as they are faithful, unless one would take away from Baptism the name of regeneration or spiritual nativity which Our Lord has given it. If thus understood there are many of the reprobate who are children of God, for how many persons are there, faithful and Baptized, who will be damned, men who, as the Truth says, believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away (Luke viii. 13). So that we totally deny this second proposition, that the reprobate are not children of God. 1 For being in the Church they can be called children of God by Creation, Redemption, Regeneration, Doctrine, Profession of faith; although our Lord laments over them in this sort by Isaias (i. 2): I have brought up children and they have despised me. But if one say that the reprobate have not God for their Father because they will not be heirs, according to the word of the Apostle, if a son an heir also (Gal. iv. 7)----we shall deny the consequence: for not only are the children within the Church, but so are the servants too, with this difference, that the children will abide there for ever as heirs; the servants shall not, but shall be turned out when it seems good to the master. Witness the Master Himself in S. John (viii. 35), and the penitent son who knew well and acknowledged that many hired servants in his father's house abounded in bread, while he, true and lawful son, was amongst the swine, perishing with hunger, a proof of the Catholic faith in this point. O how many princes are walking on the ground as servants (Eccles. x. 7)! How many unclean animals and ravens in the Ark of the Church! O how many fair and sweet-smelling apples are on the tree cankered within yet attached to the tree, and drawing good sap from the trunk! He who had eyes clear-seeing enough to see the issue of the career of men, would see in the Church reason indeed to cry: many are called and few are chosen; that is, many are in the Militant Church who will never be in the Triumphant. How many are within who shall be without;----as S. Anthony foresaw of Arius, and S. Fulbert of Berengarius. It is then a certain thing that not only the elect but also the reprobate can be and are of the Church. And he who to make it invisible would place only the elect therein, acts like the wicked scholar who excused himself for not going to the assistance of his master, on the ground that he had learnt nothing about his body but only about his soul. 1. Gal. iii. 26. For you are all the chiidren of God by faith in Christ Jesus;----and yet he calls them senseless (iii. 1), and removed, etc., (i, 6). HOME----------CATHOLIC CLASSICS www.catholictradition.org/Classics/controversy1-8.htm