The Catholic World, Vol. 01, April to September, 1865: A Monthly Eclectic MagazineVarious
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 01, April to September, 1865: A Monthly Eclectic Magazine
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
[Footnote 35: This is also the theory of High-Church
Episcopalianism. Mr. Sewall has defined it more logically than any
other writer of that school. According to him, the unity of the
Church consists in this, that all churches are formed after one
ideal model, or on one principle, and the separate churches of
individual bishops are each a perfect organic whole. That is,
Catholic unity is an _abstract_ unity, concreted in each particular
bishop and diocese. Hence there can be no organized unity of the
universal Church, but only _union_ or friendly communion of
independent churches. This notion was highly approved by Bishop
Whittingham, who expressed it in this way, that the true communion
of churches with each other is in _speculo Trinitatis_. It is pure
Congregationalism, bating the difference between a diocese governed
by a chief and inferior pastors, and a single congregation under one
pastor or several of the same order. But it is the only logical
conception of a visible church possible, when the papacy, or
principle of universal organic unity, is denied. It is the logical
result of the schismatical position of the Greeks, who have no unity
among themselves except that which is national, but are divided into
several independent bodies. Hence, the so-called "union movement,"
as clearly shown by Cardinal Patrizi in the Decree sent to the
English bishops, is one which proceeds from a denial of Catholic
unity, and therefore can never lead to unity, but only aim at union,
or voluntary co-operation of distinct churches with each other. The
High-Church theory differs from that of the German Protestants in
this that the former requires that all churches should be alike, and
each one represent completely the ideal Church; but both are based
on the same principle, that of an abstract, invisible unity and
catholicity, concreted in an individual and not a generic and
universal mode.--TRANSLATOR.]
It has been further argued that a Church of the Nations, which the
Christian Church must be, according to its idea, is entirely
inconceivable without the papacy at its summit. [Footnote 36] Here,
also, it is presupposed, as already proved, that the conception of
universality which is essentially connected with the idea of the true
Church must also necessarily impress itself upon her actual
explication of herself in time. But it is precisely against this
notion that modern Protestantism contends. Therefore, if our polemic
arms are to bring down their man, the affair must begin with a sharper
delineation of the mutual relation between the essence and the visible
form of the Church.
[Footnote 36: Döllinger, "The Church and the Churches."]
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