Chapter XV

CATHOLICITY OF THE CHURCH {continued). THE TRUE CHURCH MUST BE FRUITFUL. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS FRUITFUL, THE PRETENDED BARREN.

Perhaps you will say, at last, that after a time your church will spread its wings, and will become Catholic by process of time; but this is talking in the air. For if an Augustine, a Chrysostom, an Ambrose, a Cyprian, a Gregory, and that great multitude of excellent pastors, have not been able to manage well enough to prevent the Church from tumbling over soon after their time, how [shall] Calvin, Luther, and the rest [do so]? What likelihood is there that it should grow stronger now, under the charge of your ministers, who neither in sanctity nor in doctrine are comparable with those? If the Church in its spring, summer, and autumn has not been fruitful, how would you have one gather fruits from it in winter? If in its youth it has made no progress, how far would you have it run in its old age?

But I say further; your church is not only not Catholic, but never has been, not having the power nor the faculty of producing children, but only of stealing the offspring of others, as the partridge does. And yet it is certainly one of the properties of the Church to be fertile; it is for that, amongst other reasons, that she is called Dove. And if her Spouse, when he would bless a man, makes his wife fruitful, like a fruitful vine on the sides of his house (Ps. cxxvii.), and makes the harren woman to dwell in a house, the joyful mother of many cliildrcii (Ps, cxii.), ought he not himself to have a bride who should be fruitful, yea, according to the holy Word (Is. liv.), this desolate one should have many children, this new Jerusalem should be most populous, and have a great generation. The Gentiles shall tvalk in thy light, says the Prophet (lb. Ix.), and Icings in the glory of thy rising. Lift up thy eyes round about and see; all these are gathered together, they arc come to thee: thy sons shall come from afar, and thy daughters shall rise tip at thy side: and (liii.): because his soul hath laboured... therefore will I distribute to him very many. Now this fertility and these great nations of the Church come principally by preaching, as S. Paul says ( i Cor. iv. 15): In the Gospel I have begotten you. The preacliing, then, of the Church ought to be as a flame: Thy word is fiery, 0 Lord (Ps. cxviii. 140). And what is more active, lively, penetrating, and more quick to alter and give its form to other matters than fire?

Such was the preaching of S. Augustine in England, of S. Boniface in Germany, of S. Patrick in Ireland, of Willibrord in Frisia, of Cyril in Bohemia, of Adalbert in Poland, of Stephen in Hungary, of S. Vincent Ferrer and John Capistran; such the preaching of *.... Francis Xavier, and a thousand others, who have overturned idolatry by holy preaching; and all were Eoman Catholics.

On the contrary, your ministers have not yet converted any province from paganism, nor any country. To divide Christendom, to create factions there, to tear

• There are four or five words here in the MS. which we fail to make out. There is some indication of the names of (S.) Louis Bertrand, and Anchieta, the others appear to be Henrye and Lorier. [Tr.]

ART. III. c. XV.] The Rtile of Faith. 215 in pieces the robe of Our Lord, is the effect of their preachings. Christian doctrine is as a gentle rain, which makes unfruitful soil to bring forth: theirs rather resembles hail, which beats down and destroys the harvests, and makes barren the most fertile lands. Take notice of what S. Jude says: Woe, to them who... have 'perished in the gainsaying of Gore (Core was a schismatic); these are spots in their hanquets, feasting together luithodt fear, feeding themselves, clouds ivithout water which are carried cd)out hy the loind: — they have the exterior of the Scriptures, but they have not the interior moisture of the Spirit: — nnfrnitfiil trees of the autumn, — which have not the leaves of the letter nor the fruit of the inner meaning; twice dead, — dead to charity by schism, and to faith by heresy; plucked up hy the 7'oo^s, unable any more to bear fruit; — raging waves of the sea, foaming out their oion confusion — of disputes, contests and violent changes; — wandering stars, — which can serve as guides to no one, and have no firmness of faith but change about in every direction. What wonder then that your preaching is sterile? You have but the bark without the sap, and how would you have it germinate? You have only the sheath without the sword, the letter without the meaning; no wonder you cannot uproot idolatry. So S. Paul,* speaking of those who separate from the Church, protests that they shall advance no further. If then your Church can m no way style itself Catholic up to this present, still less can you hope it may do so afterwards, since its preaching is so feeble, and its preachers have never undertaken, as Tertullian says,t the business or commission " of converting heathens, but only

• 2 Tim. iii. 9. f De Prcesc. xlii.

of perverting our own." Oh what a Church, then, which is neither one, nor holy, nor Catholic, and, which is worse, can have no reasonable hope whatever that it will ever become so.