The result of the second of these principles has been the perfect unity of Catholics in doctrine and in morals. The voice of the church is the voice of God. She is a living teacher. She does not hide her truths in languages whose meaning sages only can unfold. She speaks to every man in his own vernacular, and proposes to him not only the formularies, but the exact ideas which make up the Christian faith. She is not confined to general statements, under whose vague phraseology notions the most opposite may be concealed. She enters into all the infinite details which every proposition of divine truth embraces, and prints it in the same unvarying form upon the souls of men. With the millions who are gone before she has thus labored. With the millions who are yet alive she is thus laboring to-day. And all, in their submission to her teaching, have found that perfect concord of doctrine which the gospel promised to the faithful flock of Christ, and testify to the eternal wisdom of that God who placed his church upon the earth to set at naught the foolishness of man.
In a religion such as this there can be no room for choice. To the church heresy is evermore a name of execration and of horror. The heart and will of her disciples have but one exercise, and that is submission. Unconditionally, unquestioningly, unprotestingly, they bow before her voice and echo its decrees. Reason is quiescent. Where it cannot comprehend, it passes by. Faith grasps the mystery and lays it on the heart to be its law for ever. The soul has but one inquiry for every dogma, for every precept: "Teacher of God, what hast thou spoken?" The teacher answers and the soul obeys.
Such is Catholicity. It is the antithesis of Protestantism. Whatever similarity may exist in certain of their doctrines, in their ultimate, essential natures they are simple opposites. The void between them is as vast as that through which the First-born of the morning fell; the dividing lines as sharp and as precipitate as the high cliffs which bound the tides of Acheron. That "via media," along which the easy traveller may walk secure, rejoicing in the sunlight of both earth and heaven, is a fond, foolish dream. The church knows but two modes of existence in reference to herself, submission and rebellion; and even reason teaches that her judgment, on this point, is unimpeachable.
Through all that weary journey which lies between these nether worlds of spiritual being the convert's feet must tread. When God's grace finds him, he is a Protestant—perhaps so pure and logical as to be standing on the shores of rationalism and looking at his own soul as his source of light—perhaps so inconsistent and so self-deceived as to acknowledge an authority which his fundamental Protestantism denies. But whether from the external Saharas of Christian scepticism, or whether from beneath the shadow of the truth itself, the path he follows leads him to one goal, the goal of unconditional submission. Conversion may come to him through the successive adoption of Catholic dogmas, through fondness for external rites and forms, through personal friendship and familiarity, through any of those myriad ways by which God leads the steps of his elect toward heaven; but, when it comes, it is the same change for each, for every one—the abnegation of all choice and self-affirmation, and the complete subjection of the heart and will to the obedience of faith. Then, and then only, is the work ended and conversion made complete. What the church teaches is, from that hour, the faith of that Christian heart. What the church commands is the law of that Christian will. Doubt and hesitation and self-following are of the days gone by, and his devotion to the church, as God's teacher, is only rivalled by his love for her as the home of God's elect. The waters of the deluge roar and dash around his mighty ark of safety, and men and women, as they clamber up the rugged mountains of their own devices, laugh at him for his ignorance and folly; but he abides in peace, when the dark waves have overtopped them and engulfed them, and will live to offer sacrifice on Ararat when the days of divine searching have passed by.
The utter falsehood of those definitions of conversion which we have denied, becomes apparent from this description of what conversion is. There is no inherent impossibility that a pure Protestant, exercising to the fullest extent the right of private judgment, should arrive at doctrines identical with those which the church teaches, and should, as a result of this identity, accept even her formularies as expressive of his faith. The mystery of the Trinity, than which no mystery is greater, is thus received by the majority of Protestants; and there is nothing in the doctrines of Transubstantiation. Purgatory, and the like, which is unreachable by the same process of scriptural investigation, unaided by the conscious teachings of the [{470}] church. There can be no doubt that men have, by this method, approximated closely to Catholic doctrine, who yet were wholly actuated by Protestant principles, and never dreamed of submitting heart and will and reason to the dictation of any authority whatever.
These men apparently hang over the church, ready to drop like ripe fruit into her open bosom. Nevertheless, whatever of her symbolism they may cherish, they cherish, not because it is hers, but because it is their own. It is not truth which she has taught them; they have discovered it themselves. It brings them no nearer to her in heart. It does not subject their will to hers. On the contrary; it often begets in them an arrogance of her divine security, as if their similarity to her constituted them her equals in the authority of God. Such men are not with the church, whatever proximity they seem to have. Their boast of Catholicity deceives many, and most frequently themselves, but can delude none who realize to what humility her true children must descend, and how unquestioningly, when God speaks, man must hear. The prayers of the faithful are more needed for such souls than for any others, that God would send them the disposition, as well as the light of faith.
Of the various corollaries which might be drawn from this demonstration of the real nature of conversion, there is but one which time and space allow us to notice. That one is this: That the whole question between Catholics and Protestants is one of fact and not primarily of doctrine; and can, like any other fact, be investigated and proved by human evidence. On one side, it is asserted that faith and morals are of comparative indifference to salvation, and that no source of divine light exists on earth higher than that of scripture, interpreted and judged by reason. On the other side, it is claimed that whatever God has revealed must be received without question or contradiction, and that the organized society known as the Catholic Church is the mouthpiece and medium of that revelation. This covers the whole point in issue. If, as a matter of fact, the first assertion is correct, Protestants are secure in their acceptance or denial of any or of all articles of specific Christian doctrine. If the second is true, the teachings of the Catholic Church must be received implicitly, under peril of disobedience to God. The question of the truth of particular dogmas, or of the obligation of certain codes of law, is entirely foreign to this issue. If the church is right, transubstantiation, the immaculate conception, the seven sacraments, are matters not to be discussed or proven, but to be believed. If she is wrong, they are simply of no consequence whatever. Any investigation which escapes this only real point in controversy will be in vain. Inquiry must begin here and end here, or else result in making men either bad Catholics or stronger Protestants than ever.
This "question of questions" is to be answered by logical demonstration based on certain facts. As a historical work, the Bible is a sufficient witness of the visible and audible facts which it records; and the miracles of of Christ therein related establish his personal divine commission and the entire reliability of the declarations which he made. As historical works also, the writings of his immediate disciples are a sufficient witness of their understanding of his teachings, and of the actions which, in pursuance of that understanding, they performed. If Christ stated that doctrines and precepts are not conditions of salvation, and placed in the hands of man the book known as the Bible, with the assurance that he could safely follow whatever interpretation thereof his human judgment might give, and if, as so directed, his disciples did not insist on specific creeds and laws, and did receive and circulate the Bible as the only organ of revealed truth, then that fact can be ascertained. If, on [{471}] the other hand, Christ revealed a certain system of doctrine, and established certain laws of conduct; if he founded a church and conferred on her the authority to teach and the right to be obeyed; and if his followers recognized such an institution, and uniformly submitted to its authority as divine, then this, as a fact, can, in its turn, be proved.
To a fair, candid, and complete investigation of this question, in the light of history, the Catholic Church invites all Protestants throughout the world; confident that, by the good help of God's grace, this simple examination, properly conducted, would lead the many hundred jarring sects of Christendom into a Catholic unity of spirit and into the bond of a true gospel peace.