The Church and Her Attributes [pp. 788-803]

Thze Chzurch and her Attributes.
participatione, eodem cultu inter se
adunatorum sub uno capite Christo in
ccelis, et sub ejus in terris vicario
summo pontifice-the society of the
faithful, baptized in the profession
of the same faith, united in the participation of the same sacraments
and the same worship, under one
head, Christ in heaven, and on
earth under his vicar, the supreme
pontiff."*
All will not accept the whole of
this definition; but all will agree
that the church is a society embracing all the faithful, united in the true
worship of God under one head, Jesus
Christ in heaven; but the heterodox
deny the union under one head or
one regimen on earth. But what is
a congregation or society of the faithful under Christ its head? A congregation or society under one head
implies both unity and multiplicity,
either many made one, or one manifesting or explicating itself in many,
and in either sense supposes more
than the heterodox in general understand by the church. The faithful,
congregated or associated under one
head, Christ, are one body, for Christ
is the head of the congregation or
society, not merely of the individuals
severally; but the heterodox generally, in our times at least, make the
church consist solely of individuals
aggregated to the collective body of
believers, because already united as
individuals by faith and love to
Christ, as their head; which supposes
Christ to be the head of each individual of the church, but not of the
church herself. According to this
view, men are regenerated outside of
the society or church, and join the
church because supposed to be regenerated or born again, not that they
may be born again. The church
in this case is simply the aggregate
* Billuart, De Regf. Fid. Dissert. III. DB Ecci.
Art. I.
of regenerated persons, and derives
her life from Christ through them,
instead of their deriving their life
from Christ the head through her.
The one view makes the church' a
general term, an abstraction, performing and capable of performing
no part in the regeneration and sanctification of souls; the other makes
the church a reality, a real existence,
living a real life not derived from
her members, and the real medium
through which our Lord carries on
his mediatorial work; and therefore
union with her is not only profitable
to spiritual life, but necessary to its
birth in the soul, and therefore to individual salvation. This must be
the case if'we suppose Christ to be
the head of the congregation or society called the church, and of individuals severally only as they are
affiliated to her.
There is, we suspect, a deeper
philosophy in the church than the
heterodox in general are aware of.
"The church,"; it was said in this
magazine, in one of the essays on
The Problems of the Age, "is the human race in its highest sense," that
is, the regenerated human race, the
human race in the teleological order, not in the order of natural
generation, which is simply cosmic
and initial. This supposes in the
church something more than individuals, as, indeed, does society itself.
With nothing but individualities
brought together there is no society,
there is only aggregation, because
there is no unity, nothing that is one
and common to all the individuals
brought together. In all real society
there is a social principle, a social
life, in which individuals participate,
but which is itself not individual, nor
derived from the individuals associated. Thus in every real nation, not
a pseudo nation made up of the forced juxtaposition of distinct and often
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