form; an assumption that goes virtually to deny and set aside all similar church character in the case of other sects; for the case forbids the notion of two or more systems, separately clothed with the same universal force. Nothing short of such claim to exclusive wholeness is involved in the right each sect asserts for itself, to settle doctrines, make laws, and ply the keys, in a way that is held to be for the bounds of its own communion absolutely whole and final. Such ecclesiastical acts either mean nothing, sink into the character of idle sham, or else they are set forth as the utterances of a real church authority which is taken to be as wide as the idea of the Church itself. Every sect in this way, so far as it secretly owns the power of this idea, puts on in mock proportion at least all the airs of Rome. But now, on the other hand, the inward posture of every sect again, as such, is at war with catholicity, and urges it also to glory in the fact. The sect mind roots itself in some subjective interest, made to take the place of the true objective whole of christianity, and around this it affects to revolve pedantically as an independent world or sphere. Then it is content to allow other spheres beyond itself, under the like independent form. So its universal rights and powers as we had them just before (rights and powers that mean nothing ecclesiastically save as they are thus catholic and not partial) shrink into given bounds; often ridiculously narrow; much like the power of those old heathen deities, whose universal sway was held to stop short with the limits of the nation that worshipped at their shrines. It is a power dogmatical, diatactical, and diacritical,48 as they call it, which is of full conclusive force (the “keys of the kingdom of heaven”) for one man but not for another his next neighbor; for James but not for John; for such as have agreed to own it but not for those who have been pleased to own a different church; universal as the boundaries of the particular denomination from which it springs, the numerical all of a given sect, but of no force whatever beyond this for the mighty whole of which the sect is confessedly only a fraction and part. Here comes out of course the inward lie of the sect system, forcing it to falsify on one side what it affirms of itself on another. Sects are constitutionally uncatholic. Commonly they dislike even the word, and are apt to be shy of it, as though it smacked of Romanism, and as having a secret consciousness that it expresses a quality of the Church which their position disowns. By this however they in truth condemn themselves. It is the very curse of sect, to bear testimony here to the true idea of the Church, while it must still cry out, “What have I to do with thee thou perfection of beauty!”49 No sect as such has power to be catholic; just as little at least as Judaism has ever had any such power.
No one can say truly, “I believe in a holy catholic Lutheranism, Presbyterianism, Methodism, or any like partial form of the christian profession,” as he may say, “I believe in the holy catholic Church.” For every such interest owns itself to be a part only of what the full fact of christianity includes, and is so plainly in its own nature. How then should it ever be for faith the whole? What sect of those now existing, Lutheran, German Reformed, Methodist, &c., can seriously expect ever to take up the universal world of man’s life into its bosom—unless by undergoing at last such a change in its own constitution, as shall cause the notion of sect to lose itself altogether in another far higher and far more glorious conception? No such has faith, or can have faith, in any universality of this sort as appertaining to itself; for to have it, would be to feel in the same measure a corresponding right and necessity to extend its authority over the whole world; which we know is not the case. It belongs to that which is in its own nature universal, to lay its hand imperatively on what it is found to embrace. Catholicity asks willing subjects indeed, but not optional. It says not, you may be mine, but you must. The true whole is at the same time inwardly and forever necessary. But what sect thinks of being catholic in this style? Is it not counted catholic rather in the sect vocabulary, to waive altogether the idea of any such universal and necessary right, and to say virtually: “We shall be happy to take charge of you if you see fit to be ours—but if not, may God speed you under some different conduct and care!” Not only the sect itself, but the sect consciousness also, the sect mind, is constitutionally fractional, an arbitrary part which can by no possibility feel or act as a necessary whole.
8. In this way we are brought finally to see the difference, between the true catholicism of christianity, and the mock liberalism which the world is so fond of parading on all sides in its name. This last appears in very different forms, though it ends always in the same general sense. Sometimes it openly substitutes the idea of mere humanism for that of christianity, and so prates of the universal brotherhood of man, as though this were identical with the kingdom of God, and sentimental philanthropy the same thing with religion. In another shape, it is found preaching toleration among opposing sects, exhorting them to lay aside their asperities and endeavoring it may be to bring them to some sort of free and independent confederation (such as the Peace Society50 aims at among nations), that shall prove the Church one in spite of its divisions. Then again it comes before us in the character of an open war against all sects, calling upon men to forsake them as in their very nature uncatholic; and to range themselves under the standard of general christianity, with no creed but the Bible and no rule for the use of it but private judgment. And here it is that the spirit in question often comes to look like an angel of light, by contrast with the demon of sectarianism which it pretends to cast out; so that to many it seems impossible to distinguish it from the true genius of catholicity itself, as we are taught to acknowledge this in the old church Creed. But there is just this world-wide difference between the two, that the one is positive and concrete, while the other in all its shapes is purely negative and so without real substance altogether. This is at once apparent, where mere philanthropism is made to stand for religion; the liberality it affects has indeed no limits, but it is just because the religion it represents has no contents; it is of one measure with the natural life of man, because it adds nothing to this and has no power whatever to lift it into any higher sphere.51 The same vast defect however goes along with the pseudo-catholic theory also in its other more plausible forms. The universality it proposes is not made to rest in the idea of the Church itself, as the presence of a real concrete power in the world, with capacity and mission to raise the natural life of man to a higher order (the Body of Christ) which in such view implies historical substance, carrying within itself the laws and conditions of its own being; which men may believe, but have no ability to make, more than they may pretend to make the natural world: not in this is it made to rest, we say, the indubitable sense of the old Creed, but in the conception rather of the mere outward all of a certain number of men, or parties of men in world convention represented, who consent to be of one mind in the main on the great subject of the gospel, and only need to extend such voluntary association far enough to take in finally the entire human family. All ends in an abstraction, which resolves itself at last simply into the notion of humanity in its natural character, as bringing into it no new whole whatever for its organic elevation to a higher sphere. There is no mystery accordingly ever in this pseudo-catholicism; it needs no faith for its apprehension; but on the contrary falls in readily with every sort of rationalistic tendency and habit. Sects too, that hate catholicism in the true sense, find it very easy to be on good terms with it under such mock form; the most unchurchly and uncatholic among them, taking the lead ordinarily in all sorts of buttery twaddle and sham in the name of christian union. The purely negative character of the spirit is farther shown, in its open disregard for all past history. It acknowledges no authority in this form, no confession, no creed; but will have it, that christianity is something to be produced by all men, in every age, as a new fact fresh from the Bible and themselves. But how then can it be taken to have any substance of its own in the actual world, any wholeness that is truly concrete, and not simply notional and abstract? Catholic and historical (which at last means also apostolical) go necessarily hand in hand.
J. W. N.
31. [J. W. N[evin], The Mercersburg Review 3 (January 1851) 1–26.]
32. [The term “Catholic” as applied to the
