AND THE GENTILE WORLD AT THE FIRST PROMULGATION OF THE GOSPEL. CONSIDERATIONS ON THE CATHOLICITY OF THE CHURCH SOON LOAN STACK COPYRIGHT, 1878, BY REV. AUG. J. THÉBAUD, S. J. New York: J. J. Little & Co., Printers, 10 to 20 Astor Place. PREFACE. BR165 TE い As soon as God communicated to fallen man his decree of redemption, and promised that "the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent," the Church was born, at least in design. Mankind was to be regenerated, born again; and those who should comply with the conditions of reconciliation would form a society united anew with the Creator. For as the former bonds of union had been broken up by disobedience, and God had been alienated from man by this first sin, it was necessary that, in order to recover what had been lost by this fatal separation, man, on his part, should henceforth obey, submit to the will of his Maker, bow to his authority, and thus deserve to be reconciled with him. In this simple process we have all the elements of a firm religious society. From that moment down to this there has always been a portion of mankind submissive to the divine laws, and on this account dear to God and worthy of his regard. For them the source of grace, gushing forth, even in anticipation, from the wounds of a dying Saviour, was to flow in rapid and constant streams, to wash, purify, refresh, and regenerate the sons of Adam, changed into sons of God. This is the great mystic body, whose head is Christ Jesus. As a body it must have unity. The essential and inward character of this is derived certainly from the Head, from the God-man: "In whom all the building being framed together, groweth up into an holy temple in the Lord."* But besides this essential characteristic of religious unity, there are among men exterior marks of it which must be attentively considered, because they can never be wanting even in the supposition of an imperfect Church, as was the case before Christ. These at all times consist in the profession of the same * In quo omnis ædificatio constructa crescit in templum sanctum in Domino. -Eph. ii. 21. 107 faith and the observance of the same divine commands. This kind of unity is absolutely required in every organization worthy of the name of a Church, although since Christ came this is not sufficient, as all theologians know. But, primitively, when apparently there was no organic center, and the members seemed to be left to their own independent action, there was nevertheless for the whole body the necessary influence from the invisible Head which kept the members united together in the same belief and the same morality. This is sufficient to constitute a religious body before its full development, as God intended it should become at last. It can even be maintained that in this embryo state it far transcends the best organized monarchies and republics, whose source of unity is only derived from exterior constitutions and laws, having for their object what is called the temporal welfare of the subjects, and can scarcely be said to reach their souls and to affect in any way the best portion of their nature. The mystic body of which we speak, on the contrary, destined to exist on earth until the end of time, is ruled and governed by a spiritual constitution and spiritual laws, looking to the eternal inter'ests of immortal beings. Their minds are subjected to the control of a positive belief, which all possessing in common makes them brothers in spirit more strictly than if they were all brothers by blood, and born of the same identical father. Let any one seriously reflect on the few following words: to believe absolutely in the same manner what concerns God and the soul; to have the same views not only of the moral universe but of eternal life itself; to agree together on the origin of the world and on its future destiny; to judge of the present life according to the same pattern of appreciation; to form the same estimate of greatness and vileness, of virtue and vice, of time and eternity. For mind it well, we remain in the generality of the mystic body of Christ as it was at first, even long before the faint adumbrations of the Old Law, and yet we perceive in it a thousand features of solidity and worth which place it far above any purely human commonwealth you can choose. As to its unity in the same moral precepts, it requires a blind man not to see that if any State is happy when it has good laws, these laws, after all, regulate concerns of a very inferior kind and altogether limited to the present time, whilst the moral precepts imposed by Almighty God on the members of his Church, even in its less perfect organization, at the same time that they powerfully secure the material interests of society, look chiefly to a far higher aim, and refer to man's |