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

The Church and her Attributes.
medium, and hence the reason why
they so universally shrink from calling Mary the Mother of God, and
accuse of idolatry the devotion which
Catholics pay to her. Though the
eternal Word took the flesh he assumed from her, yet, as that flesh is
not in their view the medium of our
spiritual life, they cannot see in her,
more than in any other pure and
holy woman, any connection with
our regeneration, and our spiritual
or eternal life. They cannot see
that, in denying her claims, they virtually reject the whole Christian order.
The difficulty, though not the mystery, disappears the moment we recog,nize the sacramental principle,
which it was the prime object of,
the Reformers to eliminate from the
Christian system. In the definition
of the church, she is said 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." The sacraments are all visible signs signifying, that is, communicating grace to
the recipient. Among these sacraments is one, which is the sacrament
of faith, the sacrament of regeneration, that is, baptism, in which we
receive the gift of faith, and are born
members of Christ's body, and united to him as our head, and as the
head of the regenerated race. In
baptism we are regenerated, born
into the supernatural order, the kingdom of heaven, and have the life of
Christ infused by the Holy Ghost
into us, so that henceforth we become flesh of his flesh, bone of his
bone, one with him, and one with all
the faithful in him, as really united
to him in the spiritual order, as we
are to Adam in the natural order,
and derive our spiritual life from
him as really as we derive from
God, through Adam, our natural
life. This is what we understand
St. Paul to mean when he says, "It
is written, the first man, Adam, was
made a living soul; the last Adam a
quickening spirit." The sacraments
are all effective ex opere oPerato, and
through them the Holy Ghost infuses
the grace special to each, when the
recipient opposes no obstacle to it.
Infants are incapable of offering any
obstacle, and are regenerated by
baptism in Christ and joined to him.
In the case of adults who have grown
up without faith, the prohibentia, or
obstacles to faith, must be removed,
by reasons that convince the understanding and produce what theologians call fides humana, or human
faith, such faith as we have in the
truth of historical events; but this
faith is wholly in the natural order,
although it embraces things in the
supernatural order as its material
object, and does not at all unite us
to Christ as our head. It brings us,
when faithful to our convictions, to
the sacrament of baptism, but cannot introduce us into the order of regeneration; the faith that unites us
to the body of Christ, and through it
with Christ himself, or divine faith, is
the gift of God, and is infused into
the soul by the Holy Ghost in the
sacrament of baptism itself.*
Hence, in her present state, only
the baptized belong to the society called the church of Christ,
and only the baptized are united as
one body under Christ, their head in
heaven, or under his vicar on earth.
The satisfaction or atonement made
by our Lord to divine justice, though
it was made for all, and is ample for
the sins of the whole world, avails
individuals, or becomes practically
theirs, only as through baptism, vel
in re, vel in rvoto, they are really uni * Theologians generally teach that an act of supernatural faith, elicited by the aid of a special transient
grace, precedes the infusion of the habit of faith.-ED.
CATHOLIC WORLD.
793