THE TRUE CHURCH

Where is this one true Church? What is this one true Church like? What are the marks by which this one true Church may be known? You may well ask such questions. Give me your attention, and I will provide you with some answers.

1. The one true Church IS COMPOSED OF ALL BELIEVERS IN THE LORD JESUS. It is made up of all God's elect - of all converted men and women - of all true Christians. In whomsoever we can discern the election of God the Father, the sprinkling of the blood of God the Son, the sanctifying work of God the Spirit, in that person we see a member of Christ's true Church.

2. It is a Church OF WHICH ALL THE MEMBERS HAVE THE SAME MARKS. They are all born again of the Spirit; they all possess "repentance towards God, faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ," and holiness of life and conversation. They all hate sin, and they all love Christ. (They worship differently, and after various fashions; some worship with a form of prayer, and some with none; some worship kneeling, and some standing; but they all worship with one heart.) They are all led by one Spirit; they all build upon one foundation; they all draw their religion from one single book - that is the Bible. They are all joined to one great center - that is Jesus Christ. They all even now can say with one heart, "Hallelujah;" and they can all respond with one heart and voice, Amen and Amen.

3. It is a Church WHICH IS DEPENDENT UPON NO MINISTERS UPON EARTH, however much it values those who preach the gospel to its members. The life of its members does not hang upon Church-membership, or baptism, or the Lord's Supper - although they highly value these things when they are to be had. But it has only one Great Head - one Shepherd, one chief Bishop - and that is Jesus Christ. He alone, By His Spirit, admits the members of this Church, though ministers may show the door. Till He opens the door no man on earth can open it - neither bishops, nor presbyters, nor convocations, nor synods. Once let a man repent and believe the gospel, and that moment he becomes a member of this Church. Like the penitent thief, he may have no opportunity of being baptized; but he has that which is far better than any water-baptism - the baptism of the Spirit. He may not be able to receive the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper;but he eats Christ's body and drinks Christ's blood by faith every day he lives, and no minister on earth can prevent him. He may be ex-communicated by ordained men, and cut off from the outward ordinances of the professing Church; but all the ordained men in the world cannot shut him out of the true Church.

It is a Church whose existence does not depend on forms, ceremonies, cathedrals, churches, chapels, pulpits, fonts, vestments, organs, endowments, money, kings, governments, magistrates or any act of favor whatsoever from the hand of man. It has often lived on and continued when all these things have been taken from it. It has often been driven into the wilderness, or into dens and caves of the earth, by those who ought to have been its friends. Its existence depends on nothing but the presence of Christ and His Spirit; and they being ever with it, the Church cannot die.

4. This is the Church TO WHICH THE SCRIPTURAL TITLES OF PRESENT HONOR AND PRIVILEGE, AND THE PROMISES OF FUTURE GLORY ESPECIALLY BELONG; this is the Body of Christ; this is the flock of Christ; this is the household of faith and the family of God; this is God's building, God's foundation, and the temple of the Holy Ghost. This is the Church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven; this is the royal priesthood, the chosen generation, the peculiar people, the purchased possession, the habitation of God, the light of the world, the salt and the wheat of the earth; this is the "Holy Catholic Church" of the Apostles' Creed; this is the "One Catholic and Apostolic Church" of the Nicene Creed; this is that Church to which the Lord Jesus promises "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it," and to which He says, "I am with you always, even unto the end of the world"(Matt.16:18; 28:2).

5. This is the only Church WHICH POSSESSES TRUE UNITY. Its members are entirely agreed on all the weightier matters of religion, for they are all taught by one Spirit. About God, and Christ, and the Spirit, and sin, and their own hearts, and faith, and repentance, and necessity of holiness, and the value of the Bible, and the importance of prayer, and the resurrection, and judgment to come - about all these points they are of one mind. Take three or four of them, strangers to one another, from the remotest corners of the earth; examine them separately on these points: you will find them all one judgment.

6. This is the only Church WHICH POSSESSES TRUE SANCTITY. Its members are all holy. They are not merely holy by profession, holy in name, and holy in the judgment of charity; they are all holy in act, and deed, and reality, and life, and truth. They are all more or less conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. No unholy man belongs to this Church.

7. This is the only Church WHICH IS TRULY CATHOLIC. It is not the Church of any one nation or people; its members are to be found in every part of the world where the gospel is received and believed. It is not confined within the limits of any one country, or pent up within the pale of any particular forms of outward government. In it there is no difference between Jew and Greek, black man and white, Episcopalian and Presbyterian - but faith in Christ is all. Its members will be gathered from north, and south, and east, and west, and will be of every name and tongue - but all one in Jesus Christ.

8. This is the only Church WHICH IS TRULY APOSTOLIC. It is built on the foundation laid by the Apostles, and holds the doctrines which they preached. The two grand objects at which its members aim are apostolic faith and apostolic practice; and they consider the man who talks of following the Apostles without possessing these two things to be no better than sounding brass and tinkling cymbal.

9. This is the only Church WHICH IS CERTAIN TO ENDURE UNTO THE END. Nothing can altogether overthrow and destroy it. Its members may be persecuted, oppressed, imprisoned, beaten, beheaded, burned; but the true Chruch is never altogether extinguished; it rises again from its afflictions; it lives on through fire and water. When crushed in one land it springs up in another. The Pharaohs, the Herods, the Neros, the Bloody Marys, have labored in vain to put down this Church; they slay their thousands, and then pass away and go to their own place. The true Church outlives them all, and sees them buried each in his turn. It is an anvil that has broken many a hammer in this world, and will break many a hammer still; it is a bush which is often burning, and yet it's not consumed.

10. This is the only Church OF WHICH NO ONE MEMBER CAN PERISH. Once enrolled in the lists of this Church, sinners are safe for eternity; they are never cast away. The election of God the Father, the continual intercession of God the Son, the daily renewing and sanctifying power of God the Holy Ghost, surround and fence them in like a garden enclosed. Not one bone of Christ's mystical Body shall ever be broken; not one lamb of Christ's flock shall ever be plucked out of His hand.

11. This is the Church WHICH DOES THE WORK OF CHRIST UPON EARTH. Its members are a little flock, and few in numbers, compared with the children of the world; one or two here, and two or three there - a few in this place and few in that. But these are they who shake the universe; these are they who change the fortunes of kingdoms by their prayers; these are they who are the active workers for spreading the knowledge of pure religion and undefiled; these are the life-blood of a country, the shield, the defence, the stay, and the support of any nation to which they belong.

12. This is the Church WHICH SHALL BE TRULY GLORIOUS AT THE END. When all earthly glory is passsed away then shall this Church be presented without spot before God the Father's throne. Thrones, principalities, and powers upon earth shall come to nothing; dignities, and offices, and endowments shall all pass away; but the Church of the first-born shall shine as the stars at the last, and be presented with joy before the Father's throne, in the day of Christ's appearing. When the Lord's jewels are made up, and manifestation of the sons of God takes place, Episcopacy, and Presbyterianism, and Congregationalism will not be mentioned; one Church only will be named, and that is the Church of the elect.

13. Reader, THIS IS THE TRUE CHURCH TO WHICH A MAN MUST BELONG, IF HE WOULD BE SAVED. Till you belong to this, you are nothing better than a lost soul. You may have the form, the husk, the skin, and the shell of religion, but you have not got the substance and the life. Yes, you may have countless outward privileges; you may enjoy great light, and knowledge - but if you do not belong to the Body of Christ, your light and knowledge and privileges will not save your soul. Alas, for the ignorance that prevails on this point! Men fancy if they join this church or that church, and become communicants, and go through certain forms, that all must be right in their souls. It is an utter delusion, it is a gross mistake. All were not Israel who were called Israel, and all are not members of Christ's Body who profess themselves Christian. TAKE NOTICE; you may be a staunch Episcopalian, or Presbyterian, or Independent, or Baptist, or Wesleyan, or Plymouth Brother - and yet not belong to the true Church. And if you do not, it will be better at last if you had never been born.

So if they teach sin as doctrine, you're afraid of being kicked out for pointing it out. And that makes you what?
A seeker of comfort rather than truth.

See, they are the authority in ya'lls mind who can do no wrong and they answer to no one. When they do wrong, ya'll are outraged and do nothing so that you aren't ostracized and thrown out.

Hmm, let me see. My soul is at risk if they teach error, they do so and I should be quiet lest they throw me out of their error teaching for pointing out the error. This sounds like a French war plan. "Shhh we've been captured, if we speak out, they might let us go."

And how do you know when they teach error. They are the self professed masters of all things that can do no wrong.
If they're wrong, who do you turn to? I know they're wrong; but, I don't have a bunch of extranious doctrine and threats hanging round my neck. You aren't just worried about being apostate, you're worried about losing all your family and friends. Catholicism is like the mob in that regard. Try to leave and you are an evil to be scraped off.
They just don't snuff ya out these days.. cause even they have fallen prey to PC and have no authority to enforce their earlier edicts. But I digress, what do you do.

Blessed, Blessed, Blessed;

I must admit it is difficult to know how to respond to you when you describe the RCC as a "poison tree". The pre-suppositions in such a statement are overwhelming. Does the observation that "Catholics sin, but Catholicism is true" put me in denial? No more than the observation that "Apostles sinned, but Christianity is true". Logically they are equivalent. Logically they are true. If you ignore that then the denial is yours.

Are there corrupt Bishops and priests? Absolutely. Is the faith true? Absolutely. So how does one resolve an apparent dilemma? By knowing the faith.

Doctrinally, Catholicism moves at a snail's pace. It is well documented and reasoned. As SoothingDave points out, 2,000 years of history gives one an immense set of resources. The Church also does a very good job of summarizing it in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Start there.

What about corrupt Bishops and priests. While we wish they did not exist, they are a fact of life. Will they have a lasting effect? I think not. Why? Because we have suffered from corrupt bishops since the very beginning apparently. In a somewhat famous quote, attributed variously to either St. John Chrysostom or St. Athanasius: "The floor of hell is paved with the skulls of bishops." And yet the miracle that is the Catholic Church continues. So what do we do?

The CC has a mechanism for weeding out the corrupt. It too moves at a snail's pace, but it does move. There are mechanisms in Rome for making sure the faith is adhered to. Interestingly, the Inquisition still exists, but not in the same form of course. The Catholic Church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, whose mission is to "to promote and safeguard the doctrine on the faith and morals throughout the Catholic world" has its roots in the old Inquisition (and if you only know the conventional wisdom about the Inquisition, let me assure you, it is false. There are several articles here on FreeRepublic that will demonstrate that.)

Are there corrupt bishops even now? Yes. Can they evade detection and removal? Yes, but not for long. The corrupt are the exceptions to the rule.

How do we know that Tradition is reliable? Amazingly, there is an enormous set of documents from the early church fathers, some going back to the very disciples of the Apostles. They lay out beautifully the beliefs of the early church. Not surprisingly, they describe Catholic doctrines. Their statements sound like the doctrinal statements that come from Rome today. Tradition is reliable because it can be traced all the way back. It has famously been said that "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant". As such, it is not so much the burden of Rome to prove that Tradition is reliable, but for Protestants to prove that it is unreliable. I have yet to see an argument against a particular Tradition that did not twist the plain meaning of words in order to come to some anti-Catholic conclusion. And there are plenty of Protestant historians that acknowledge the solid roots of Catholic Tradition. J.N.D. Kelly comes to mind, whom I quoted in separate comments above.

We do not believe that Rome (or more specifically, the Chair of Peter in concert with the Bishops) speaks with "private interpretation" about the Bible for several reasons. Two of immediate applicability are that (1) Jesus gave Peter and the Apostles the ability to set doctrine and (2) Catholics wrote the Bible and set the canon. I think it's fairly obvious that we know what is in the Bible and that our doctrines can be traced all the way back. Conversely, several foundational Protestant doctrines are novelties of the 16th century and later. They can not be traced back to early church. They arose whole cloth out of the Reformation. Sounds like a prima facia case of "private interpretation" and a "tradition of men" to me.

And if I, a believer, have (access to the teachings of) the Apostles, ... why would I need history ?

To know what the teachings meant when they were given. Believe it or not, 20th Century thought is not the same as 1st Century thought.

I find it peculiar this utter disinterest in what Christianity meant ot the first Christians, and their children, etc.

And the difference, other than convenience, is what ?

The "difference" is that God obviously instituted a teaching Church. He could have done nothign otherwise, unless he waited for the Guttenbergs and the 19th Century public school acts.

It was not a doctrine of the church until 1215 when the doctrine of Transubstantiation promulgated by Pope Innocent III as official dogma of the church.

Sure it was. It was explicitly stated in the Liturgy and and the Bible, and was the teaching of all the Fathers of the Church.

"We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [i.e., has received baptism] and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus" (St. Justin Martyr, First Apology 66 [A.D. 151]).

"It is not man that causes the things offered to become the Body and Blood of Christ, but he who was crucified for us, Christ himself. The priest, in the role of Christ, pronounces these words, but their power and grace are God's. This is my body, he says. This word transforms the things offered." (St. John Chrysostom, prod. Jud. 1:6:PG 49,380)

"Be convinced that this is not what nature has formed, but what the blessing has consecrated. The power of the blessing prevails over that of nature, because by the blessing nature itself is changed. ... Could not Christ's word, which can make from nothing what did not exist, change existing things into what they were not before? It is no less a feat to give things their original nature than to change their nature." (St. Ambrose of Milan, The Mysteries 9:50 [A.D. 390])

"When [Christ] gave the bread he did not say, ‘This is the symbol of my body,’ but, ‘This is my body.’ In the same way, when he gave the cup of his blood he did not say, ‘This is the symbol of my blood,’ but, ‘This is my blood’; for he wanted us to look upon the [Eucharistic elements] after their reception of grace and the coming of the Holy Spirit not according to their nature, but receive them as they are, the body and blood of our Lord. We ought ... not regard [the elements] merely as bread and cup, but as the body and blood of the Lord, into which they were transformed by the descent of the Holy Spirit" (Theodore of Mopsuestia, Catechetical Homilies 5:1 [A.D. 405]).

(it had been debated since the second century)

Yes, by ignorant heretics such as yourself.

Even then it was years before their was any way to defend it. Then in 1265 Thomas Aquinas developed an explanation for the Transubstantion doctrine.

Not so. All St. Thomas did was use philosophical terms to explain what had always been believed and explained. See above and note the use of the words "transformed" and "changed".

So until the 1200's one could be a Catholic and not believe the doctrine. It was not a clear cut as you portray it.

Umm ... the Pope only defined abortion was murder in 1994. Could you be a good Catholic and not believe that doctrine until then?

You have a very attenuated and childish view of Catholic dogmatics. Every post you have made on Catholicism positively revels in ignorance and stupidities concerning what you think Catholics believe. Its no wonder you have gone out from among us to join the heretics in their abominations.

Your argument is too tortured. A plain reading of the text yields the Catholic interpretation, an interpretation held by the immediate disciples of the Apostles, an interpretation held for close to 2,000 years by the Catholic Church.

Whatever else might be said, the early Church took John 6 literally. In fact, there is no record from the early centuries that implies Christians doubted the constant Catholic interpretation. There exists no document in which the literal interpretation is opposed and only the metaphorical accepted.

Why do Fundamentalists and Evangelicals reject the plain, literal interpretation of John 6? For them, Catholic sacraments are out because they imply a spiritual reality
— grace — being conveyed by means of matter. This seems to them to be a violation of the divine plan. For many Protestants, matter is not to be used, but overcome or avoided. As such, the hunt for any interpretation to void the Catholic one is necessary. Any novel interpretation that overthrows the Catholic meaning is accepted. A prima facia case of eisegesis.

So if they teach sin as doctrine, you're afraid of being kicked out for pointing it out.

He didn't say anythign remotely like that. Lying is still a sin, ya know?

You aren't just worried about being apostate, you're worried about losing all your family and friends. Catholicism is like the mob in that regard. Try to leave and you are an evil to be scraped off.

You really are ignorant. People who leave other churches to become Catholic face just as much "harrassment." Only a bigot like yourself would think it's one sided. Ask James White's sister.

The rest is your usual bloated nonsense. Have at it, no one's listening.

I see a difference in upholding a standard and giving in as the Episcopalians have done.I question whether you can make the case that the standard is really being upheld by the Catholic Church

You are still talking about actions. "Upholding" the standard means that our official teachings state that homosexuality is a grave disorder and any homosexual act is always intrinsicly morally wrong.

I can also tell you that our official teaching says that lusting after a woman is wrong, but Catholic men do it all the time. It doesn't mean we have no standard, just that we are sinners.

Let me put it this way. The priests and bishops who abused children or even had "adult" homosexual relations could have proclaimed from the pulpit that there is nothign wrong with their behavior. They could hold a council and say "hey whatever makes you feel good." But they don't.

Why? Cause they can't. It would be impossible to reconcile these sinners choice of sin with the already clear and historical and yes, traditional teaching of the Church.

No what drove them away was Jesus telling them that unless the Father draws them they can not be saved..How does a legalist Jew that believes that Law keeping will save him respond to this ? It gives all the control for their eternity into the hand of the Father.

So free will plays no role in cooperating with grace in your view? We are just automatons?

I wonder why you never ask how a legalist Jew viewed he had the power and ability to keep the Law? Did he think he just did it on his own? Clearly not. The parable of the Pharisee and Publican would tend to lead us to believe that they credited it to God, since the Pharisee gave thanks to God He was not like other men, who are sinners. So in the Pharisee's view, God made the Pharisee a keeper of the Law.

The spiritual emptiness of the Pharisee was his view that he was already saved, because God had graced him so he was no longer troubled by sins and could rightly (or so he thought) look upon himself as superior to the sinful rabble, represented by the Publican. God was good and merciful to him, but as to that Pharisee, well, you could clearly see he was just a sinful reprobate - just look at the fruits of his life! Honestly, it sounds rather like the Calvinism (or is it a pseudo-Calvinism?) you and others have been expressing here. The world divided perceptibly into the saved and the damned, and nothing we do will change any of it (looked at from our view, not God's all-seeing view).

The rejected the thought that they could not earn heaven by their merit..that in fact even with the diligent law keeping they still might not be saved.

Well, certainly no one is going to be saved who does not keep the Commandments. Christ has solemenly assured us of that a number of times, and so has St. John and St. Paul.

The CC has a mechanism for weeding out the corrupt. It too moves at a snail's pace, but it does move. There are mechanisms in Rome for making sure the faith is adhered to. Interestingly, the Inquisition still exists, but not in the same form of course. The Catholic Church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, whose mission is to "to promote and safeguard the doctrine on the faith and morals throughout the Catholic world" has its roots in the old Inquisition (and if you only know the conventional wisdom about the Inquisition, let me assure you, it is false. There are several articles here on FreeRepublic that will demonstrate that.) Are there corrupt bishops even now? Yes. Can they evade detection and removal? Yes, but not for long. The corrupt are the exceptions to the rule.

If I may just add that many outside the Church don't understand the "snail's pace" nor the dynamics involved in the Church. They feel it is like the military, or a dictatorship. The Pope only has so much power. He often chooses to deal with a stubborn bishop by simply waiting him out. Where removing a bishop may lead to schism, simply waiting for the hippie to die and be replaced by someone with a more orthodox outlook will eventually turn the ship around.

Ocean liners don't turn on a dime.

It had nothing to do with the "real presence "

So Judas was just damned? Nothing to do with his free will sinning? Damned because he had no alternative possible in his actions?

How did they eat the flesh of Christ as he was still wearing it?

"wearing" flesh sounds an awful lot like Platonism or Manichean dualism. When applied to Christ it sounds even worse, most like Apollonarianism.

Anyway, if you are asking about the multiplication of Christ's physical presence without division of Christ (the import behind the miraculous feeding of the 5000), you can read St. Thomas about what we teach. Its the essence of the meaning behind transubstantiation.

The way in which Christ is in this sacrament

Whatever else might be said, the early Church took John 6 literally. In fact, there is no record from the early centuries that implies Christians doubted the constant Catholic interpretation.

Saying that something has been practiced for ages is no indication of it being correct. At the time of the writings of the Gospels it was being stated by the Apostles themselves that error was already creaping into the church. You gain nothing by way of authority by stating the age of a doctrine. You have to prove the doctrine. If you can't do that, nothing else matters.

For them, Catholic sacraments are out because they imply a spiritual reality — grace — being conveyed by means of matter.

When Jesus states that the flesh profits nothing re nourishment of the spirit, there is no dispute to be had. Flesh does not profit the spirit.

Torturing an argument is what has to be done on your side. The torture is the argument over the definition of the word "the", compounded by ignoring the fact that Jesus spoke in parables to unbelievers (even if they happened to be following him), further compounded by the fact that the Bread of life was eaten before Christ was ever born. The torture is that your clergy stumbled into something they didn't understand, then misconstrued it's meaning in their ignorance and started teaching it as gospel. That or they willingly got it wrong - which thoughts I'll not entertain.

Wrong they got it though and so it stands. It doesn't matter whether it's labeled Catholic doctrine, Protestant doctrine, Mormon etc. Scripture trumps doctrine. Not single verses but Scripture in context. One wonders why if consuming Christ's flesh was required, it wasn't evident in the OT when they were eating the bread of life. I keep returning to that because you guys ignore it as if to pretend that Christ coming somehow changed God's word. If God be the same yesterday today and forever, you have a real problem.

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