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Show - Is There Salvation Out of the Church of Christ? -. The Catholic divines admit of but one exceptional case, and that is of what i3 called Invincible Ignorance of the Truth. They say (and they but expound ex-pound the ipaching ot the Catholic. Church upon the subject) that a per- c-vn TfVirv Vi n lj A Mfo hilt T a S nOt .1 1HJ UO.i JtfU a gUWLl had it in his power to be rightly informed in-formed of the truths preached by Jesus Christ and the Apostles, may be considered con-sidered to have supplied the defect of actual, visible connection with the Church by his sincere desire to know, his efforts to find out, and his readiness readi-ness to embrace the right faith. However, How-ever, such a one cannot be said absolutely abso-lutely and in every sense of the word out cf the church. Although, indeed he is' not a perfect member of the Chutch, he is considered to be virtually such. His errors (in the supposition) are merely material, and the true faith is what he implicitly wishes and strives to have. With the exception of such a foco nc v,ic v,.. unanimfiiislv assert 1 with all the councils, that out of the True Church there is no salvation. Protestants exclaim: What an uncharitable unchar-itable doctrine! A Protestant, then, they say, who is morally an excellent man, is to be hereafter a reprobate, because, be-cause, forsooth, he is net a Roman .Catholic. This can easily be retorted upon Protestants, for, believing, as they propese to believe, that Baptlnm is a necessary sacrament, and that without with-out it no man can enter into the kingdom king-dom of heaven, if they are consistent with their own principles, . they must needs confess that in honest Quaker is not in the way of salvation. Such, in fact, is the beMef of the Reformed church. The Church of Scotland, for iraytance, in her confession of faith, agreed upon bv the divines cf Westminister, West-minister, approved ' by the general assembly as-sembly in the year 1647, and ratified by act of parliament, speaks thus: "The visible church, which is also Catholic or universal under the Gospel (not confined con-fined to one nation, as before under the law) confl'sits of all those throughout through-out thie world that profess the true religion, re-ligion, and of their children, as is the Kingdom cf the Lord Jesus Christ, the-house the-house and famfily of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of sal-va'ticn." sal-va'ticn." In the Protestant catechism we find that to be saved by the death of Chritet. we mmt. become members of that spiritual society or body of which He is the head, because we cannot can-not partake of the Spirit of Christ, un-I??3 un-I??3 we are members of the Body of Christ, and that tho Body of Christ is called the Church. It will therefore be observed that Catholics are found fault with by persons per-sons for holding the very self-same doctrine doc-trine that they doom this all-important point. Let us now examine upon what Scriptural ground rests this doctrine. We read in the 'Acts of the Aposfcles (chap. 2) "That .all they that believe were praising God together, and having hav-ing favor with all the people, and the Lord added to' their society sucn as, should be save 3r' , To.. be saved.- then, it was necessary to be added to the Church. Again, we have in (Mark, 16) these very precise words .of our Lord: "He that beldeveth and is baptized Rhall be "raved; but he that believeth net shall be' condemned." To be saved, then, it ifw necessary to believe, and to believe rightly; because if ' all sorts of belief were as good the one as the ether, if believing agreeably to each person's own. 'conscience were sufficient, the Turks and the Jews would be in the way1 of salvation. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, says St. Paul to the Ephe-Eians- and to the Hebrews; without fai'tlh it is impossible to please God; and consequently, if there be but one faith, and if without faith it is impossible to pleas G'cd, he who does not believe ; this one faith cannot be pleasing to Him. In the Acts (13 th) we read that of the Gemtiles: "As many as were preordained pre-ordained to eternal life believed." What did they believe? What Paul and Barnabas Bar-nabas had preached to them. They, then, of course, abandoned their ancient an-cient belief, or, in other words, such as were to be saved changed 'their wrong faith into the right one of the" truth delivered to them.. The English communion book, printed print-ed by authority, orders that ontChrist- j mis dar and some ether festivals, in- ! stead of 'the Apostles' -Creed, the con- ! fe?si;on of Christian faith, commonly called the Athanasian Creed, shall be i read. This creed begins: "Whosoever will be saved before all "things, it is! necesaary yiat he hold the Catholic fa'tth, which faith except every one doth keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly." The a-rticLes of faith next follow, and the creed concludes- thus: "This is the Catholic faith, which except a man believe be-lieve faithfully, he cannot be saved.' I After this solemn declaration, who I would expect that Catholics should be rebuked by persons adhering to it, as professing an , uncharitable and exclusive doctrine? If all kinds of belief were equally good,- or the right belief not absolutely necessary to salvation, it might reasonably reason-ably be asked,, why did Jesus Christ and His Apostles, after Him, take so much pains to instruct the people and teach them the things they were to believe, be-lieve, and warn them against doctrinal error? Their efforts would have been useless and only calculated to trouble the minds of the people and cause dissensions. dis-sensions. Yet St. Paul is so careful and so anxious that we should keep our faith pure, he tells us: "If an angel from heaven preach a gospel to you beside that which we have .preached to you, let him be anathema." Could he express himself in stronger terms? Does this nojr prove of what great consequence con-sequence it is to have the right faith not any faith? If a gospel preached (were it possible) even by an angel contrary to that one preached by the Apostles, should become so abominable, abomin-able, how can the followers of Luther and of the "minions of Henry VIII and his successors be tranquil? To err wilfully is to go out of the road to heaven. In the epistle to Titus St. Paul says: "A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid; knowing that he is such a. one is subverted and sinneth. being condemned con-demned by his own. judgment." The fact is that' he who redeemed us had a right to exact what conditions of salvation he pleased. It is a vain and dangerous curiosity to inquire into the secrets of . Providence, to ask - why faith and; faith in things superior to our understanding is required of us. We have only to examine whether such a faith is demanded of us, and when we find that faith., is necessary to our salvation, we" must bow our proud heads .and curb oflr curiosity. The sentence pronounced against heretics (who according to. the definition given of tho word in a Protestant catechism are they that teach a different faith to that of the Church) is decisive. In the second epistle of St. John i3 said: "Whosoever recedeth and continueth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God," and St. Paul in his letter to the Gallacians, reckons heresies among the works of the flesh, which hinder those who do them from obtaining the kingdom of God. To say. therefore, that heretics, or as Protestants style them, those who teach a different faith from that of the Church, are not in the way of salvation, is the true doctrine. The Church of England is so convinced con-vinced that a right belief is necessary, that besides- teaching in her catechisms j that baptism is necessary to salvation, i that to be saved it is necessary to be a member of the body of Christ, which is the Church, she adds in her Profes-1 Profes-1 sion of Faith: "We are justified by faith only." And in the 18th act declares: de-clares: "They are to be accursed that presume to say that every man shall 1 ho sni-pri hv the law or sect which he profescas, so that he be 'diligent to frame his life according to that -law and right of. nature; for Holy Scripture Scrip-ture doth set out unto us only the name of Jesus Christ whereby men must be saved." The Church of Christ begins from Him 'who is her head. Every Church that has had her birth in later times is not the Church that was built on' Peter, is not the Church St. Paul calls the pillar of truth. The true Church could not err, and consequently, could not need reforming. When this was attempted ' the Catholics might justly address the reformers in the words of St. John: "They went out from us, but they are not of us. For if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us." In conclusion, I would ask if the texts of Scripture are so plain in condemning those who do not believe, if the Apostles Apos-tles have been so anxious to teach the world all the truths they had learned, if St. Paul so strongly recommends to. abhor every novelty in point of belief, if he declares that without faith it is impossible to please God, and asserts that there is but. one faith, if St. Paul extern! aoouica ua iimi. ucreucs cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven, what can excuse the negligence of those persons per-sons who, uncertain of the truth of their belief, do not content themselves I with following the doctrine in which they were brought up, although their , teachers openly avow they have no pre-; pre-; tension to infallibility, and therefore, , tacitly admit that they may be leading ; their followers astray? I f A. good life and invincible ignorance j do not without baptism supply the defect de-fect of actual visible, connection with tlfe true. Church. Baptism is the new birth by which we become members of the family of which Christ is the head. One can no more be a member of the Church of Christ without baptism i than one can be a member of the human family without being born of woman. Good- intentions and invincible ignorance ignor-ance presuppose baptism. |