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SUNDAY READING.

■‘THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH.” “On this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” —Saint Matt., XVI., 18.

(By Rev. A. H. Collins, New Plymouth.) Of course you will know that this passage has been a storm centre for twice a thousand years. Papist and Protestant have struggled here in sectarian disputation, and the heat has been greater than the light. I am anxious not to prolong the strife or add to the bitterness. Party feeling is a serious hindrance to a truthful interpretation. It builds systems and buries Scripture. It cares more for grammar than for grace. It lives on the roots of words, more than in the reason of things, and a truth-loving heart is a ■better interpreter than all the lexicons. The Bible is addressed to the man and not to the critic. An unlettered saint often reaches truth which eludes the verbal pedant. But it is still true that to. speak of ‘’the Holy Catholic Church” is to touch dynamite!

Each Article of the Creed has been challenged and denied. The existence of God, the Deity of our Lord, His Eternal Sacrifice, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, His coming again to Judgment, the Presence of the Holy Ghost, have been the subjects of controversy by men who reject revealed religion. But the Church, its orders and its ministry, are matters of angry debate amongst Christians themselves, and men “hate one another for the love of God!” The effects arc all too patent. These civil wars have wrought greater havoc than all the attacks of critics, from Celsus to Robert Blatchford. Strength which should have been devoted to the fight against drink, debauchery and dishonesty, has been frittered away in mutual recrimination and unlovely strife! We are baffled and beaten because, instead of love and unity, we have a number of warring sects, which gives point to the Frenchman's jibe that “England is a nation of many religions and one sauce.” It is a pitiful story of bigotry and illtemper. and. it calls for penitence. But there is something to be said on the other side. Some things are never discussed for the simple reason that they don’t matter much. We do not “shoot butterflies with a rifle.” But these religious questions do matter, and where people feel deeply they speak strongly. Besides, truth ‘is more than unity, and unity is more than uniformity. “We are all united here.” said one, “we are frozen together.” Nevertheless, let us guard our thoughts and our lips against al] uncharity. It is better to fuse than fight.

MEANING OF THE CHURCH. , Do you notice that belief in the Holy Ghost'and belief in the Holy Catholic Church are intimately connected? The one depends on the other. It is because we can say, “I believe in the Holy Ghost,” that we are able to add. “I believe in the Holy Catholic Church. Pentecost was the birthday of the Church, and the Church continues because the Spirit abides. For the Church is not a club, a cult, a guild, or an ecclesiastical corporation; it is a Spiritborn fellowship of the friends of Jesus Christ. The Catholic Apostolic Church may be defined as the Society of the Friends of Jesus. It is the home of His Spirit, the organ of His will, or, as Saint Paul puts it, the Church is “the Body of Christ,” and just as the human body of Christ touched and healed the sick and the sinful, so to-day His Spirit acts through His Body the Church. I shall return to that before I have done. But let me ask you to note the words “Church” and “Catholic.” Whence do we get the word “Church”? We meet it frequently in the Book of “Some of the Acts of Some of the Apostles,” and in the New Testament Epistles, but it is significant that the word does not occur in three of the Gospels, and only twice in Saint Matthew! The doctrine of the Church and the question of Church orders have been the subject of endless controversy and wrangling, yet our Lord used it seldom. His great Word was not “the Church” but “the Kingdom.” The •word “Catholic” is not a New Testament •Word at all. In “the Apostles Creed” itself, the word “Catholic” was not applied to the Church until the fourth century, and it is quite useless to contend that belief in “the Holy Catholic Church” can be traced back to the age of the Apostles themselves. Now let us treat this article of “the Apostles’ Creed” with perfect candour. For myself, I do believe in “the Holy Catholic Church.” But I must use the phrase in an honest and intelligent way, and in order to do that I must refuse to follow the guidance of some who turn •’Church” into an ecclesiastical organisation, guarded by magic, and empty the term “Catholic” of its plain sense by the exclusion of half the churches of Christendom, and denies their ministers the right to preach the Word of God, or administer the sacraments! The Creed affirms that the Church is “one,” that it is “Holy,” and that it is “Catholic.” The marks of the true Church are unity, holiness, catholicity. But is the Church of the Ecclesiastics one? For answer I quote the words of Bishop Westcott: “Can we believe that there is one Church when we recall the divisions of Christendom, as we must do in sorrow of heart? One Church, when rival bodies challenge our allegiance, and compass sea and land to make a proselyte? One Church, when each noblest communion is itself broken into parties, eager to narrow the limits of their own inheritance by the peculiarities of their own opinion? One Church, when, this side and that, we are answered bv anathema if we bear the greetings of peace?” Well, the good Bishop answers “Yes!” But it is a plea which seems to justify the sceptic’s sneer that “faith is the faculty which enables men to believe what otherwise they know to be untrue.” The simple truth is that in any outward and mechanical sense the Church is no more one than a rope of sand is one.

IS IT HOLY? Ts the Church of the Ecclesiastics holy? There is only one honest reply. There have been whole centuries when “holy” was about the last word to describe the Chureh as it actually existed, whole centuries when the Church was vain, oppressive, covetous and worldly in a disgraceful degree, centuries when the chief officials of the Church sanctioned grave abuses, practised cruel persecution, revelled in violence, and lived shamelessly evil lives. To deny these things is impossible, and to claim sanctity for such a Chureh is a serious misuse of plain language. There were glorious exceptions, I know, but a few righteous men in Sodom did not constitute that city a holy city.

I Is the Chureh of the Ecclesiastics ! Catholic? ’Again the answer must be '‘‘No.” There is no Church in existence that can make good its claim to that word, no single Church that includes the whole of Christendom, or the whole of truth. Truth is infinite and our knowledge partial and grows with the flight of years. There has never been a Creed big enough to include the whole of God’s revelation, or a Church big enough to embrace all good men and women. There are thousands 'of names on Church rolls that do not represent membership in Jesus Christ’s Church, and there are tens of thousands of men and women who have never been enrolled in any local Church who nevertheless belong to the one holy Catholic communion. “And all the way from Calvary down The carven pavement shows Their graves who wore the martyr’s crown And safe in God repose. The saints of many a warring creed Who now in Heaven have learned That all paths to the Father lead Where self the feet have spurned.” AN IDENTICAL CREED. Nevertheless, as I have said already, “I believe in the Holy Catholic Chureh,” the Church in which the Spirit of God dwells, and through which the Spirit of God works. Nor do I expect to see any widespread religious awakening that does not arise first in the heart of that Spirit-born fellowship. I ask you to believe in it, to work for it, to pray for its prosperity, and to give it your •best love and your best service. I ask you to attend the Church, defend the Church, and commend the Chureh. For, mark this well, the Chiircn is one —one as goodness nnd truth are one. There is no specia’ nd of Roman Catholic helpful l no exclusively Anglican faithfulness, rfo distinctively Methodist piety, no peculiarly Baptist charity. The underlying Creed on which aii good men live and act is identical, immutable and universal. The Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans, but the Samaritans’ oil and wine and pence were just as efficacious as the priest and Levites would have been if they had given them. “There are no Gentile oaks, no Pagan pines, The grass beneath our feet is Christian grass, The wayside weed, is sacred unto Him.”

The Church is one by Inclusion, and not by Exclusion. The Church is neither Latin, nor Greek, nor Anglican, nor Nonconformist. It is International, and Cosmopolitan, and Inter-denominational. It is the unseverable communion of all who seek to love and serve God, quite apart from paltry questions of orthodoxy and heterodoxy, creeds and confessions and Church, orders. The Church is holy—it is the only Society that deserves the name—not because its mem■bers are blameless, but because its sacrament is love and its ritual service. You cannot be in its fellowship unless you possess its Spirit, and you cannot be shut out if you have the Spirit of Goodness. Membership in this Church cannot be mechanically or magically conferred. Its purity is not the aloofness of the recluse, or the “Oh’s” and “Ah’s” of the emotionalist, or the scrupulosities of the Pharisee; but the sweet, clean, humble life of service of God and man.

The Chureh is Catholic. Look down the list of any great humanitarian society, and you will find Anglican and Free Churchman, Jewish Rabbi and Roman Catholic priest, are its members and helpers. Look at our Hymn Book. Men of all names and orders are here. Isaac Watts was never allowed to preach in Westminster Abbey, but on all great national occasions the glorious Minster resounds with his hymn: “Our God our Help in ages past, Our Hope for years to come.” When we stand and sing—• “In the Cross of Christ I glory, Towering o’er the wrecks of time” who cares a brass farthing that Sir John Bowering, its author, was a Unitarian? W’hen we sing—< “Lead, Kindly Light,” who troubles a single straw that the writer was a Cardinal of Rome, or that a Monk composed the lyric—- “ Jesus, the very thought of Thee With sweetness fills my breast.”

“The Holy Catholic Church” is neither Roman nor Anglican, Methodist nor Presbyterian, Salvation Army nor Baptist; it is bigger and better than either or all. When next we say “I believe in the Holy Catholic Church,” let us mean it. Let our prayers rise like a fountain, night and day. Pray for the ending of its disunion, pray that its witness may brighten, that its work may flourish. Pray that the Church, may arise pure as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners. “My soul shall pray for Zion still While life and breath remain: There my best friends and comrades dwell, There God, My Saviour, reigns.”

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TDN19220513.2.73

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Taranaki Daily News, 13 May 1922, Page 9

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,956

SUNDAY READING. Taranaki Daily News, 13 May 1922, Page 9

SUNDAY READING. Taranaki Daily News, 13 May 1922, Page 9

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