Not only is it required that ministers of the Gospel should conform their teaching to the doctrine of the Apostles, but also that these ministers should be ordained and commissioned by the Apostles or their legitimate successors. “Neither doth any man,” says the Apostle, “take the honor to himself, but he that is called by God, as Aaron was.”[73] This text evidently condemns all self-constituted preachers and reformers; for, “how shall they preach, unless they be sent?”[74] Sent, of course, by legitimate authority, and not directed by their own caprice. Hence, we find that those who succeeded the Apostles were ordained and commissioned by them to preach, and that no others were permitted to exercise this function. Thus we are told that Paul and Barnabas “had ordained for them priests in every church.”[75] And the Apostle says to Titus: “For this cause I left thee in Crete, ... that thou shouldst ordain Priests in every city, as I also appointed thee.”[76] Even St. Paul himself, though miraculously called and instructed by God, had hands imposed on him,[77] lest others should be tempted by his example to preach without Apostolic warrant.
To discover, therefore, the Church of Christ among the various conflicting claimants we have to inquire, first, which church teaches whole and entire those doctrines that were taught by the Apostles; second, what ministers can trace back, [pg 040] in an unbroken line, their missionary powers to the Apostles.
The Catholic Church alone teaches doctrines which are in all respects identical with those of the first teachers of the Gospel. The following parallel lines exhibit some examples of the departure of the Protestant bodies from the primitive teachings of Christianity, and the faithful adhesion of the Catholic Church to them.
| Apostolic Church. | Catholic Church. | Protestant Churches. |
| 1. Our Savior gives pre-eminence to Peter over the other Apostles: “I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”[78] “Confirm thy brethren.”[79] “Feed My lambs; feed My sheep.”[80] | The Catholic Church gives the primacy of honor and jurisdiction to Peter and to his successors. | All other Christian communions practically deny Peter's supremacy over the other Apostles. |
| 2. The Apostolic Church claimed to be infallible in her teachings. Hence the Apostles spoke with unerring authority, and their words were received not as human opinions, but as Divine truths. “When you have received from us the word of God, you received it not as the word of men, but (as it is indeed) the word of God.”[81] “It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us,” say the assembled Apostles, “to lay no further burden upon you than these necessary things.”[82] “Though an angel from heaven preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.”[83] | The Catholic Church alone, of all the Christian communions, claims to exercise the prerogative of infallibility in her teaching. Her ministers always speak from the pulpit as having authority, and the faithful receive with implicit confidence what the Church teaches, without once questioning her veracity. | All the Protestant churches repudiate the claim of infallibility. They deny that such a gift is possessed by any teachers of religion. The ministers pronounce no authoritative doctrines, but advance opinions as embodying their private interpretation of the Scripture. And their hearers are never required to believe them, but are expected to draw their own conclusions from the Bible. |
| 3. Our Savior enjoins and prescribes rules for fasting: “When thou fastest, anoint thy head and wash thy face, that thou appear not to men to fast ... and thy Father, who seeth in secret, will repay thee.”[84] The Apostles fasted before engaging in sacred functions: “They ministered to the Lord, and fasted.”[85] “And when they ordained Priests in every city, they prayed with fasting.”[86] | The Church prescribes fasting to the faithful at stated seasons, particularly during Lent. A Catholic priest is always fasting when he officiates at the altar. He breaks his fast only after he says Mass. When Bishops ordain Priests they are always fasting, as well as the candidates for ordination. | Protestants have no law prescribing fasts, though some may fast from private devotion. They even try to cast ridicule on fasting as a work of supererogation, detracting from the merits of Christ. Neither candidates for ordination, nor the ministers who ordain them, ever fast on such occasions. |
| 4. “Let women,” says the Apostle, “keep silence in the churches. For, it is not permitted them to speak ... It is a shame for a woman to speak in the church.”[87] | The Catholic Church never permits women to preach in the house of God. | Women, especially in this country, publicly preach in Methodist and other churches with the sanction of the church elders. |
| 5. St. Peter and St. John confirmed the newly baptized in Samaria: “They laid hands on them and they received the Holy Ghost.”[88] | Every Catholic Bishop, as a successor of the Apostles, likewise imposes hands on baptized persons in the Sacrament of Confirmation, by which they receive the Holy Ghost. | No denomination performs the ceremony of imposing hands in this country except Episcopalians, and even they do not recognize Confirmation as a Sacrament. |
| 6. Our Savior and His Apostles taught that the Eucharist contains the Body and Blood of Christ: “Take ye, and eat; this is My Body.... Drink ye all of this, for this is my Blood.”[89] “The chalice of benediction which we bless, is it not the communion of the Blood of Christ; and the bread which we break, is it not the participation of the Body of the Lord?”[90] | The Catholic Church teaches, with our Lord and His Apostles, that the Eucharist contains really and indeed the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ under the appearance of bread and wine. | The Protestant churches (except, perhaps, a few Ritualists) condemn the doctrine of the Real Presence as idolatrous, and say that, in partaking of the communion, we receive a memorial of Christ. |
| 7. The Apostles were empowered by our Savior to forgive sins:—“Whose sins ye shall forgive, they are forgiven.”[91] “God,” says St. Paul, “hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation.”[92] | The Bishops and Priests of the Catholic Church, as the inheritors of Apostolic prerogatives, profess to exercise the ministry of reconciliation, and to forgive sins in the name of Christ. | Protestants affirm, on the contrary, that God delegates to no man the power of pardoning sin. |
| 8. Regarding the sick, St. James gives this instruction: “Is any man sick among you, let him bring in the priests of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.”[93] | One of the most ordinary duties of a Catholic Priest is to anoint the sick in the Sacrament of Extreme Unction. If a man is sick among us he is careful to call in the Priest of the Church, that he may anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. | No such ceremony as that of anointing the sick is practised by any Protestant denomination, notwithstanding the Apostle's injunction. |
| 9. Of marriage our Savior says: “Whoever shall put away his wife and marry another committeth adultery against her. And if the wife shall put away her husband and be married to another she committeth adultery.”[94] And again St. Paul says: “To them that are married ... the Lord commandeth that the wife depart not from her husband, and if she depart that she remain unmarried.... And let not the husband put away his wife.”[95] | Literally following the Apostle's injunction, the Catholic Church forbids the husband and wife to separate from one another; or, if they separate, neither of them can marry again during the life of the other. | The Protestant churches, as is well known, have so far relaxed this rigorous law of the Gospel as to allow divorced persons to remarry. And divorce a vinculo is granted on various and even trifling pretenses. |
| 10. Our Lord recommends not only by word, but by His example, to souls aiming at perfection, the state of perpetual virginity. St. Paul also exhorts the Corinthians by counsel and his own example to the same angelic virtue: “He that giveth his virgin in marriage,” he says, “doeth well. And he that giveth her not doeth better.”[96] | Like the Apostle and his Master, the Catholic clergy bind themselves to a life of perpetual chastity. The inmates of our convents of men and women voluntarily consecrate their virginity to God. | All the ministers of other denominations, with very rare exceptions, marry. And far from inculcating the Apostolic counsel of celibacy to any of their flock, they more than insinuate that the virtue of perpetual chastity, though recommended by St. Paul, is impracticable. |
We now leave the reader to judge for himself which Church enforces the doctrines of the Apostles in all their pristine vigor.
To show that the Catholic Church is the only lineal descendant of the Apostles it is sufficient to demonstrate that she alone can trace her pedigree, generation after generation, to the Apostles, while the origin of all other Christian communities can be referred to a comparatively modern date.
The most influential Christian sects existing in this country at the present time are the Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists. The other Protestant denominations are comparatively insignificant in point of numbers, and are for the most part offshoots from the Christian communities just named.
Martin Luther, a Saxon monk, was the founder of the church which bears his name. He was born at Eisleben, in Saxony, in 1483, and died in 1546.
The Anglican or Episcopal Church owes its origin to Henry VIII. of England. The immediate cause of his renunciation of the Roman Church was the refusal of Pope Clement to grant him a divorce from his lawful wife, Catharine [pg 044] of Aragon, that he might be free to be joined in wedlock to Anne Boleyn. In order to legalize his divorce from his virtuous queen the licentious monarch divorced himself and his kingdom from the spiritual supremacy of the Pope.
“There is a close relationship,” says D'Aubigné, “between these two divorces,” meaning Henry's divorce from his wife and England's divorce from the Church. Yes, there is the relationship of cause and effect.