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In the Apostles’ age, the chief contest between Truth and Falsehood
lay in the war waged by the Church against the world, and the world against
the Church — the Church, the aggressor in the name of the Lord; the
world, stung with envy and malice, rage and pride, retaliating spiritual
weapons with carnal, the Gospel with persecution, good with evil, in the
cause of the Devil. But of the conflict within the Church, such as it
is at this day, Christians knew comparatively little. True, the Prophetic
Spirit told them that “even of their ownselves should men arise,
speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them;” that
“in the last days perilous times should come.” [Acts xx. 30;
2 Tim. iii. 1.] Also they had the experience of their own and former times
to show them, as in type, that in the Church evil will always mingle with
the good. Thus, at the flood, there were eight men in the Ark, and one
of them was reprobate; out of twelve Apostles, one was a devil; out of
seven Deacons, one (as it is said) fell away into heresy; out of twelve
tribes, one is dropped at the final sealing. These intimations, however,
whether by instance or prophecy, were not sufficient to realize to them,
before the event, the serious and awful truth implied in the text, viz.
— that the warfare which Christ began between his little flock and
the world should be in no long while transferred into the Church itself,
and be carried on by members of that Church one with another....
Lastly, this union of the True and the False in the Church, which I have
been speaking of, has ever existed in the governing part of it as well
as among the people at large. Our Saviour sets this truth before us in
the twenty-third chapter of St. Matthew’s gospel, in which He bids
His hearers obey their spiritual rulers in all lawful things, even though
they be unworthy of their office, because they hold it — obey “as
unto the Lord and not to men.” “The Scribes and the Pharisees
sit in Moses’ seat; all, therefore, whatsoever they bid you observe,
that observe and do: but do not ye after their works, for they say, and
do not.” And no one can read, ever so little, the history of the
Church since He was on earth, without perceiving that, under all the forms
of obedience and subordination, of kind offices and social intercourse,
which Christ enjoins, a secret contest has been carried on, in the most
sacred chambers of the temple, between Truth and Falsehood; — rightly,
peaceably, lovingly by some, uncharitably by others, with a strange mixture
at times of right principles and defective temper, or of sincerity and
partial ignorance; still, on the whole, a contest such as St. John’s
against Diotrephes, or St. Paul’s against Ananias the High Priest,
or Timothy’s against Hymeneus and Alexander. Meantime, the rules
of ecclesiastical discipline have been observed on both sides, as well
as the professions of faith, as conditions of the contest; nevertheless,
the contest has proceeded....
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Ven. John Henry, Cardinal Newman (1801-1890)
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