The church is visible as well as invisible. This also follows necessarily. The internal life of the church is invisible, hidden with God; but the body of the church is visible, as was the body of Christ when on earth. The church is composed, as we have seen, of body and soul, and everybody living on earth in space and time, is by its own nature visible, and would not be body if it were not. The body of the church is composed of individuals united in the profession of the same faith, and in the participation of the same sacraments, under one head, and is therefore, since the individuals are visible, a visible body. The whole analogy of the case supposes her to be both invisible and visible, as are all the sacraments, which are visible signs or media of invisible grace. The church is the medium through which the soul is regenerated and comes into communion with Christ, the head, and derives life from his life; and how if not visible could we know where to find her, or be able to approach her sacraments, and through them be born again, and be united in the supernatural order to Christ, as in the natural order we are united to Adam? No: the church is as a city set on a hill, and cannot be hidden; and is set on a hill, made visible, that all may behold her, and flock within her walls.
The church is indefectible. This follows from the fact that Christ himself whose body she is, is indefectible, and dies no more, but ever liveth and reigneth. No matter whether you call the rock on which he said he would build his church, and against which the gates of hell shall not prevail, Peter, the truth that Peter confessed, or Christ himself, her indefectibility is equally asserted. He himself in every case, is the chief corner-stone, is, in the last analysis, the rock; and the church cannot fail, not because men may not fail, but because he who is her support, her life, cannot fail, since he is God, and as truly God in his human nature as in his divine nature. The heterodox of all shades, however they may err as to what she is, hold, as we have seen, that the church is, in some form, indefectible.
The church is authoritative. Her authority is the authority of Christ; and his authority is the authority of God in his human nature. "All power is given unto me," he said, "in heaven and in earth," and therefore is he exalted to be "King of kings and Lord of lords," so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow. The church is Christ in his humanity, and his authority is hers, for it is in and through her that he exercises his authority. To resist her, is to resist him, and to resist him is to resist God. "He that despiseth you, despiseth me, and he that despiseth me, despiseth him that sent me." This is no arbitrary authority, or authority resting solely on an external commission or appointment. It is internal and real in the church, as the body of Christ, because he is in her, lives in her, and governs in and through her. It is, then, no light thing to resist the authority of the church; for to do so, is not to resist the authority of fallible men, but the authority of God—is to resist the authority of the Holy Ghost himself. The age feels it, and seeks to justify itself in rejecting the church by denying the Divine sovereignty, or that God has any rightful authority over the creatures he has made. It demands liberty, and M. Proudhon, a man of iron logic, maintained that to assert liberty in the sense this age asserts it, we must dethrone God, and annihilate belief in his existence. "Once admit the existence of God," he said, "and you must admit the authority claimed by the church, the papal despotism and all." We have met this denial of the Divine sovereignty in the essay on Rome and the World, in the current volume of the Magazine, and proved, we think conclusively, that God is sovereign Lord and Proprietor of all his works. Very few people are willing to avow themselves atheists, however atheistic may be their speculations; and most people have, after all, a lurking belief that God is sovereign, and has plenary authority over all the creatures he has made. Concede this, and the authority of the Son is conceded; and if the authority of the Son is conceded, that of the church cannot be denied or questioned.
The church is infallible. This follows necessarily, if our Lord himself is infallible, which it were impious to doubt. Our Lord is God in his human nature indeed; but God in his human nature is God no less than in his divine nature. In this is the mystery of the incarnation—that God should humble himself, assume the form of a servant, annihilate himself, as it were, become man, and be obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, and yet be God, have all the fulness of the Godhead dwell in him bodily; this is a mystery that only God himself can fathom. We know from revelation the fact, and can understand its relation to our redemption, justification, sanctification, and glorification; but it remains a fact before which we do, and always must, stand in awe and wonder. If Christ is God, God in his humanity and also in his divinity, for he includes both natures in the unity of his divine person. He has all the attributes of divinity, while he has also all the attributes of humanity, what the fathers mean when they say, "he is perfect God and perfect man." He knows all things, and can do all things, and can neither deceive nor be deceived. He is the divine personality of the church, who is not the individual man, but the human nature hypostatically united to himself, as we have seen from St. Athanasius. His life is her life, and she must, therefore, be infallible as he is infallible. He who is infallible as God is infallible lives in her, and she lives, breathes, moves, and acts by him and in him. How then, can she be not infallible? How could she err? She could no more err as to the truth that lives and speaks in her than God himself, for she is all in him, and in her soul indistinguishable from him. She is not infallible by external appointment or commission alone, but really so in herself, in her own life and intelligence. We speak of the soul of the church, but as her soul and body are not separated or separable, she must be equally infallible in her body, or as the body of Christ, who is the life and informing principle of the body. The body of the church, by virtue of its union with Christ is, and must be, infallible. But the body of the church is a society of individuals; and is it meant that all individuals in the communion of the church are infallible? There is in the church regenerated humanity which, though it subsists not without individualization, is not individual. This regenerated humanity is united to Christ, its regenerator, and derives its life from him. In all the individuals affiliated or assimilated to the body of the church, there is both this regenerated humanity and their own individuality. As regenerated humanity, no one can err, but in their individuality all individuals do or may err more or less. Reason is in all men, and reason within its sphere is infallible; but all men are not infallible in their understanding of what is reason, or what reason teaches. Individuals who are in the communion of the church, so far as made one with her body and one with the indwelling Christ, are infallible in his infallibility; but in their individuality they are not infallible. Hence, when it is said the church is infallible, the meaning is, that she is infallible in the universal, not in the particular, or in the sense in which she is one, not in the sense in which she is many. Our faith as individual believers is infallible only in believing with the church, what she in her unity and integrity believes and teaches.
The church, we should have said before, is catholic. This follows from her unity and completeness. Catholic means the whole, or universal; and since the church is one, and is the body of Christ, who is "the way, the truth, and the life," she cannot but be catholic. She is catholic, in the words of the catechism, "because she subsists in all ages, teaches all nations, and maintains all truth." She is catholic because in her soul she is Christ himself; because in her body she is the body of Christ; because she is the whole regenerated human race in their head, the second Adam. Having Christ, who, in the order of regeneration, is at once universal and individual, she has the whole, has the universal life of Christ, has all truth, for he is the truth itself and in itself, and is the only way of salvation; for there is no other name given under heaven among men whereby we can be saved—neither is there salvation in another. She subsists in all ages, prior to the incarnation, as we have seen, by prophecy and promise; since the incarnation, in fact and reality; and has authority to teach all nations, and is set to make all the kingdoms of this world the kingdom of God and his Christ. Whatever is outside of her is outside of Christ, and is necessarily non-catholic.
The church is apostolic. This means that she is endowed with authority to teach and govern, not merely that she descends in the direct line from the apostles, the chief agents in founding and building her up, though, of course, that is implied in her unity and catholicity in time no less than in space. It means that she is clothed with apostolic authority; that is, authority in doctrine and discipline. This authority is distinguishable from the sacerdotal character conferred in the sacrament of orders. Men may have valid orders, be real priests, and actually consecrate in schism, or even heresy, as is the case with the clergy of the schismatic Greek Church and some of the Oriental sects. But these schismatic or heretical priests have no apostolic authority, no authority to teach or govern in the church, no authority in doctrine or discipline, and all their sacerdotal acts are irregular and illicit. This authority, which we have seen the church derives from the indwelling Christ, and possesses as his body, we call the apostolate. It is inherent in Christ himself, and is and can be exercised only in his name by his vicar, the supreme pontiff, and the pastors of the church under him and in communion with him. All the arguments that prove the visibility of the church prove equally the visibility of the apostolate, or, as Saint Cyprian calls it, the episcopate; all the arguments that prove the unity of the church prove the unity of the apostolate or episcopate; and, therefore, with those which prove the visibility of the church, prove a visible centre of authority, in which the episcopate takes its rise, or from which the whole teaching and governing authority under Christ radiates and pervades the whole body. The visible church being one, demands a visible head; for if she had no visible head, she would lack visible unity; and would be, as to her teaching and governing authority, not visible, but invisible. Hence Saint Cyprian, after asserting the episcopate or apostolate, held by all the bishops in solido, says, that the unity might be made manifest, or the apostolate be seen to take its rise from one, our Lord established one cathedra and gave the primacy to Peter. Saint Cyprian evidently assumes the necessity of a visible centre of authority, so that we may as individual members of the church, or as persons outside the church seeking to ascertain and enter her communion, know what is her authority and where to find it. Hence in the definition of the church we began by saying she is defined to be "the society of the faithful, baptized in the profession of the same faith, and united inter se in the participation of the same sacraments, and in the true worship of God, under Christ the head in heaven, and under his vicar, the supreme pontiff on earth." The papacy is the visible origin and centre of the apostolate, as Christ is himself its invisible origin and centre, and is as essential to the being of the visible church as are any of the attributes we have seen to be hers. To make war on the supreme pontiff is to make war on the church, and to make war on the church is to make war on Christ, and to make war on Christ is to make war on God and man.
It is no part of our present purpose to discuss the constitution of the hierarchy or external organization of the church, which, to a certain extent, is and must be a matter of positive law, and which, though having its reason in the very nature and design of the church as founded by the incarnation, lies too deep in that mystery of mysteries for us to be able to ascertain it by way of logical deduction. The idea of one living God includes the three persons in the Godhead; the idea of the incarnation includes the church; and the idea of the church includes unity, sanctity, catholicity, visibility, indefectibility, infallibility, apostolicity; and the idea of apostolicity includes authority in its unity and visibility; and, therefore, the papacy is the visible origin and centre of the authority of the church as the visible body of Christ. So far we can go by reasoning from the ideas, principles, or data supplied by revelation. The rest depends on authority, and is not ascertainable by theological reason.
We know from the New Testament that our Lord has set in his church some to be apostles, some to be pastors, etc.; but these are all included in the supreme pontiff, who possesses the priesthood, the episcopate, the apostolate, the pastorate, in their plenitude; and all, except what is conferred in the sacrament of orders, is derived directly or indirectly from him, as its origin and source under Christ, whose vicar he is. This is enough for our present purpose, and it is worthy of remark that always has the papacy been the chief point of attack by the enemies of the church; for they have had the sagacity to perceive that it is the keystone of the arch, and that if it can be displaced, the whole edifice will fall of itself. It is the pope that heresy and schism today war against, and the whole non-catholic world seek to deprive him of the last remains of his temporal authority, because they foolishly imagine that the destruction of the prince will involve the annihilation of the pontiff. It is the pontificate, and Garibaldi avows it, not the principality, that they seek to get rid of. But they may despoil the prince; they cannot touch the pontificate. He who is King of kings and Lord of lords has pledged his omnipotence to sustain it. Our Lord has prayed for Peter that his faith fail not.
It were easy for us to cite the commission of our Lord to the teaching church, and from that to argue her authority to govern under him, and her infallibility in teaching; but we have had another purpose in view. We have wished, by setting forth the relation of the church to the incarnation, and deducing from that relation her essential attributes, to show how the church can be holy and yet individual Catholics can be unholy, and how individuals, all individuals in their individuality, can be fallible and err, and yet she be infallible. The heterodox argue against the church from the misconduct of individual Catholics. They ransack history and collect a long list of misdeeds, crimes, and sins, of which Catholics have been guilty, and then ask, How can a church who has done such things be holy or be the church of God? In the first place, we answer, none of the things alleged have been committed by the church, but, if committed at all, it has been by individuals in the church; and in the second place, even rebirth in baptism does not, as we have seen, destroy the personality of the individual, or take away his free-will. He can sin after grace as well as before, and glorification is promised only to those who persevere to the end. The church is holy by her union with Christ, as his body; individuals are so by their assimilation to her, and by living through her the life of Christ.