In point of fact, these terms of agreement are numerous, and include the most fundamental articles of the Catholic faith. The trinity, the incarnation, the redemption, original sin, the regenerating, sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit, the resurrection and eternal life; the necessity of repentance for sin, and of good works, the canonicity of the principal books of the Old Testament, and of all those of the New Testament, their divine inspiration, the obligation of believing all the truths revealed by God, even if they arc super-intelligible mysteries, on the motive of the divine veracity; these are all doctrines and principles in which there is a substantial agreement. Moreover, the New-Haven school has brought the Calvinistic doctrines in those respect in which it has modified them, into a nearer approximation to the Catholic doctrines, than they were before. In regard to the cardinal point of justification, the difference is really less than it would appear. Although, in the New-Haven theology, faith is made to include what Catholics call the theological virtue of hope, yet it includes also that which we call faith, and which the Council of Trent defines to be the "root of all justification;" that is, a firm, explicit belief in those revealed truths which are necessary ex necessitate medii, and a belief at least implicit in all other revealed truths. As Dr. Bacon says, it is held that faith, in order to justify, must be accompanied by charity, or the love of God. It is our opinion, therefore, that the New-Haven divines really hold that it is fides formata, or faith informed and vivified by love which justifies, and that this doctrine is practically preached by the Congregational clergy generally. This is identically the Catholic doctrine. In this case and in others, the sayings of the learned Döllinger is verified, that "Protestants and Catholics have theologically come nearer to each other."
Perhaps we may now be able to explain to Dr. Bacon our notion of conversion, in a way which will make it appear not quite so repugnant to his reason and feelings, as it is at present. In order to do this, we will resort to an illustration, which will make our meaning plain.
We suppose Dr. Bacon will admit that the Jews before the time of our Lord did not generally have an explicit belief in the trinity or in the divinity of the Messiah; and that probably the apostles, when they were first called did not have this explicit belief; although these doctrines, especially the latter, are really contained in the Old Testament. Nevertheless, all who were Israelites indeed were in the state of grace, and the children of God. Let us suppose now, the case of a pious Jew, after the ascension of our Lord, who neither believed in Jesus as the true Messiah, nor had culpably and wilfully rejected his claims when sufficiently proposed to him. We suppose Dr. Bacon will admit that this good man had already saving faith, justification, the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit, was spiritually united to the universal church of which Christ is the head, and was united therefore in faith and love with St. Peter, and all the members of the apostolic communion. St. Peter preaches to him Jesus Christ, and he believes his word, submits to his authority as the apostle of the Lord, is baptized, joins himself to the Christian community, and partakes of the communion. Let us suppose, for the sake of illustration, that this was the case with Stephen, who became the first martyr.
Let us now take the case of Saul of Tarsus. Without deciding positively whether Saul was morally culpable or not, for his opposition to Christianity, we will suppose that he was so. At the time of his going to Damascus, he was therefore without saving faith, unjustified, destitute of sanctifying grace, and therefore not spiritually united with the church of Christ, and with St. Peter and his brethren. By the grace of God Saul believes in Jesus Christ, is baptized, and openly joins the Christian communion governed and taught by the apostles.
Now, in those two cases, we have instances of an interior change of the intellect and will followed by an exterior change of ecclesiastical relations, which is properly called a conversion to Christianity. Stephen and Saul are treated by the apostles and elders of the church in precisely the same manner, when they apply for baptism. Yet, in the former case, the interior change is not a conversion of the mind from unbelief to divine faith, or of the will from sin to the love of God. It is a conversion of the mind from an inchoate, imperfect apprehension of the revealed object of faith to a complete and perfect apprehension of the same object more clearly revealed. It is a conversion of the will from an implicit determination to submit to the rightful authority of the Messiah, to an explicit, actual obedience to the Lord Jesus as the Son of God, the Prophet, Priest and King of the Jews and of the Gentiles.
In the other case, conversion included in itself the renunciation of a proud, intellectual self-reliance which excluded the spirit of submission to the authority of God over the mind, and the substitution of the humble, docile habit of faith; together with a change of the will or heart from a selfish, cruel devotion to the purely national glory of Judea to a disinterested and divine love of God and all mankind.
In general terms, however, we speak of conversion from Judaism to Christianity in reference to all, who have been born and brought up Jews, and from conviction profess their belief in Jesus Christ, without discriminating among different persons, in regard to their subjective state. If we should undertake to give the philosophy of this conversion, we should probably suppose our subject to represent subjectively what we consider to be objective Judaism, whose logical basis is a denial of the Christ foretold in the Old Testament, and personally made known in the new, as Jesus of Nazareth. We should correctly describe this conversion as a surrender of the mind and will to the authority of Jesus Christ; and should correctly say that no person was thoroughly converted into a Christian, who merely approved of such doctrines, and practiced such precepts of Jesus Christ as he might choose, or select, by his own personal judgment and will; but, who did not submit his mind to all the truth which Christ has taught, on the motive of his divine infallibility, and his will to all he has commanded, on the motive of his divine authority.
It is plain that Stephen must have acknowledged St. Peter as the accredited representative of Jesus Christ, through whom he received the doctrine he was to believe, and the precepts he was to obey, as a Christian. The New Testament was yet unwritten, and the divine word could only be learned from the lips or the apostles. Stephen could not, therefore, submit his mind and will to Jesus Christ, except by submitting to their authority. Now, if this authority has really been transmitted to the successors of St. Peter, and to their colleagues in the episcopate, it is plain that it is by submission to this authority that we are to submit the mind and will to Jesus Christ, who has delegated it to them. "He that heareth you heareth me;" "As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you," Therefore, when a person who has not hitherto formally and explicitly recognized and submitted to this authority, makes his submission to it, we call it a conversion, because it betokens a real interior change of the intellect and will; accompanied by an exterior change of ecclesiastical relations, if he has belonged to any other visible communion before, or, if not, by the assumption of these relations for the first time. This is without respect to his former subjective state of interior relation to Christ and the church. If he had a divine faith before, conversion does not include the passage from a state of unbelief to faith. If this faith was previously vivified by charity, it does not include the passage from a state of sin to the state or grace. If, on the contrary, he was before an infidel, or a wilful heretic, and destitute of charity, conversion includes both these transitions. We do not limit the application of the word conversion to a mere interior and exterior submission to the authority of the church. We employ it also to designate conversion from sin, and continually preach to Catholics who are living in sin the necessity of being converted to a holy life. We apply the term also to a change from a tepid condition of the spiritual life to a habit of more fervent piety. It is used as a general term to denote any marked religious change for the better, and its specific meaning must be determined by the connection in which it is employed. Its indiscriminate use in denoting the act of transition from a Protestant communion to the Catholic church does not necessarily imply that no discrimination can be made among those who make this transition. Nor does it follow that all the language of the writer whom Dr. Bacon criticizes, can be fully verified in regard to all Catholic converts. Numbers of them have had from childhood a firm faith in the principal Christian mysteries, and an habitual determination of the will, at least for many years, to the love of God. In such instances, what is technically called "conversion," is like what we have supposed the conversion of Stephen to have been, the evolution of the principle of faith and obedience into a more perfect and complete actuation. Stephen had fides formata before he was baptized, and so have converts of the kind we are describing, fides formata, that is faith which worketh by love, before their external union to the body of the Catholic church is consummated.
The change which takes place in a convert of this kind, is not a transfer of mental allegiance from the word of God to the arbitrary, irresponsible dictation of a hierarchy. It is simply an increased intelligence of the actual contents of the word of God, and of the nature of the medium through which the knowledge of that word is transmitted. The object of faith, upon which the intellectual act of believing terminates, is the revealed truth considered as revealed, or as credible on the veracity of God. The medium or instrument is the testimony by which we are authentically informed of the fact of revelation and of its contents. In the case supposed, the person has received from the testimony of the Church, which reaches him through the Christian tradition, the knowledge of the principal facts and mysteries revealed by Jesus Christ. Having, therefore, a reasonable motive for believing, and the aid of divine grace, he was able, when he attained the use of reason, to elicit explicit acts of faith in the Trinity, the Incarnation, and other doctrines sufficiently proposed to him, to exercise continually the habit of faith, and to persevere in the same without any lapse. In this explicit faith, or faith in actual exercise, was contained an implicit faith in all that God has revealed, but which was not known to the subject in an explicit manner. When he examined into that testimony through which the doctrine of Christ had been proposed to him, he found that his undoubting belief in that testimony contained all implicit recognition of the infallibility of the witness, and that he must either draw the logical conclusion, or renounce the premises. He also found that the article of the creed, "I believe in the Holy Catholic Church," as revealed in the Scripture, and explained by the living, concrete sense of the primitive Christians, contains in itself the idea of infallibility. Convinced, therefore, that the Catholic Church, together with her testimony and instruction respecting the person of the incarnate God and Saviour, testifies and teaches her own infallibility as a witness, teacher, and judge of controversies, and that this doctrine is contained in the word of God, he perceives that he must believe on the veracity of God all that the church proposes to him as contained in the material object of faith, the objectum materiale quod of theologians. When he is further convinced that the bishop who occupies the See of Peter, together with his colleagues, constitutes the ecclesia docens, the teaching church, and that the infallible church has, therefore, proclaimed her doctrine in the decrees of the Council of Trent; of course, nothing remains for him to do but to seek admission into the fold of the Catholic Church. This act has not, however, changed the essence of his faith. The objectum materiale quod of faith need not include explicitly the infallibility of the church, since all theologians maintain that the knowledge of God, the Trinity, and the Incarnation, is all that is necessary ex necessitate medii, or by an absolute necessity, to saving faith; and many maintain that it is the knowledge of God as the supernatural rewarder which is alone to be placed in this category. Nor is the infallibility of the church included in the objectum materiale quo of faith, that is in the objective motive or determining cause of belief, which is the veracity of God. Billuart and De Lugo may be consulted on this point by any who wish to ascertain the germane sense of Catholic theology. Archbishop Manning, in a letter to Dr. Pusey, on the Workings of the Holy Spirit in the Church of England, has brought out this doctrine with appropriate proofs and citations in a very lucid and admirable manner. The letter can be found in the Catholic World for June, 1865. The same had been previously done by Father Walworth, in a sermon entitled Good Samaritans, published in the Volume of Paulist Sermons for 1864.