[Footnote 87: L. iii. c. 3. Kenrick.]
Tertullian, about the end of the second century, exclaims: "From no other cause have heresies arisen and schisms sprung up, except from a want of obedience to the priest of God, and because they do not remember that there is one judge for the time being in the Church, in the place of Christ." The great and general Council of Nice, A.D. 325, in one of its canons says: "The Roman Church has always held the Primacy." The Council of Sardica, in a letter to the Pope, says: "This seems excellent and most suitable, that the priests of the Lord from the respective provinces should report to the Head," i.e., to the See of the Apostle Peter. In the fifth century, all the Bishops of the province of Aries, in France, in a letter to Pope Leo, say: "The Holy Roman Church, through the most blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, has the principality above all the churches of the world." The grand Council of Chalcedon, where six hundred Bishops were present, mostly from the East, and out of the limits of the particular patriarchate of Rome, when the letter of the same Pope Leo was read, defining the faith of two distinct natures, divine and human, in Christ, exclaimed with one voice, "Peter has spoken by the mouth of Leo." At the beginning of the sixth century, the Bishop of Patara said to the Emperor Justinian: "There may be many sovereigns on the earth; but there is one Pope over all the churches of the universe." Not only Christian bishops and councils speak in this way of the Roman See, but emperors, and even pagans, use the same language. In the year 268, when Paul, Patriarch of Antioch, was condemned of heresy by a council, the pagan Emperor Aurelian directed that the Church of Antioch "should be delivered up to those whom the Bishops of Italy and the Bishop of Rome should appoint." Ammianus Marcellinus, a pagan writer of the fourth century, affirms that "the Bishops of the Eternal City enjoy a greater authority." The Christian Emperor Valentinian, in a decree of the year 455, says: "The merit of the blessed Peter, who is the Prince of priestly order, and the dignity of the Roman city, the authority also of the Synod, strengthened the Primacy of the Apostolic See." These testimonies extend from the sixth back to the second century, when the disciples of the Apostles still lived. They are not merely the testimonies of the Bishops of Rome themselves, or of those who lived in the vicinity and under the immediate influence of Rome, but they are collected from Italy, France, Africa, and the whole Eastern Church, where those great Patriarchs flourished who afterwards renounced their subjection to Rome. Thus, it is evident, from these and a host of similar testimonies, that, during the first six centuries, the Bishops of Rome claimed to exercise the supremacy in the place of Peter, and that this claim was universally acknowledged.
This is only a confirmation of the texts of Holy Scripture which I have already cited, and was foreshadowed when Christ chose the bark of St. Peter in preference to the rest, to preach from it to the multitude on the shore. The conversion of nations through missionaries sent by the Pope is Peter superintending the miraculous draught of fishes and drawing them upon the shore. His exercise of authority over patriarchs, bishops, and churches throughout the world is only the fulfilment of the commission, "Feed my lambs—feed my sheep"—be the pastor of my entire flock, the prince of pastors, the Bishop of bishops. The might, the power of the Roman See, is the fulfilment of the prophecy, "On this rock I will build My Church." On the foundation of Peter, the Catholic Church was built, and on this foundation she has ever rested. To Peter was given the power of the keys, of binding and of loosing, and his successors have ever exercised this supreme authority. If time permitted, I should now go on to show that this authority committed to St. Peter and his successors is the same, and equally of divine right in his present glorious successor, Pius IX., as it was in the times of the martyr popes of the first century; that the Roman Church has never failed, never fallen, never forfeited her supremacy, and never will while the world shall stand. But I must waive all further consideration of the attributes and notes of the Catholic Church. At present, I will only allude to the concluding part of our Lord's promise to St. Peter: "The gates of hell shall never prevail against it." Here there is the divine assurance that this rock on which the Church is founded shall stand until the end of the world, and the Church itself, on account of the firmness of its foundation, shall never be overthrown. The supremacy of his successors shall endure until the last day, and that Church which is governed by the successors of St. Peter shall alone continue to be the true Church. The gates of hell shall wage perpetual warfare against it, but in vain. That rock shall remain immovable and impregnable. By this rock it is that Jesus Christ has provided for the preservation of the Faith and for the salvation of the world. Let us recall to mind the object which we had before our minds at the commencement of these discourses: it was to find the sure and immovable basis of the Catholic faith and religion. And how admirable is the provision of Almighty God for this purpose! He has taken the greatest and most powerful city of the earth, the capital of the world; there He has erected the beacon-light of faith; there He has fixed the immovable seat of truth; there He has established the capital city of Christianity, the chief city of His kingdom on earth; there Jesus Christ has placed His Vicar, the pastor and teacher of the world, that Rome, once the mistress of the world by her arms, might rule by her faith as the Mother and Mistress of churches, and that title of the Eternal City which was given her by her pagan soothsayers might be literally fulfilled. Happy those who, amid the storms and winds of error, doubt, and ever-changing doctrine, take refuge within the walls of the Eternal City; whose faith is built not upon the shifting sands of private judgment, but on the immovable basis of church authority; whose wanderings terminate, like those of St. Paul, at Rome, whence, like him, they ascend to that celestial city whose builder and maker is God! Such a person is like the wise man of whom our Lord speaks, "that built his house upon a rock, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell not; FOR IT WAS FOUNDED UPON A ROCK."
Sermon XV.
The Thought Of Heaven.
(For The Fourth Sunday After Easter.)
Heb. iv. 9.
"There remaineth therefore a rest
for the people of God."
These words, my dear brethren, are full of consolation to each and every one of us. They lift our minds, at this Paschal season, far away from this earth, and fix them in contemplation on that happy land, the heavenly Jerusalem, where there is no sorrow, no pain, no sickness, and no death; they take us with the beloved disciple to see that celestial country, the city of God, in which stands the tree of life, and where flows the river of life, beside whose banks are seated all those who have died in the Lord, and rest from their labors. They open those pearly gates to allow us to behold the white-robed army of saints who stand before the Lamb; and we can almost hear their anthems of praise, set to music which no human heart can conceive of, that swell the courts of heaven with the celestial cry of, "Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come!"