11.  See Pere Marechal’s attractive account of the Mohammedan mystic, Al Hallaj (Recherches de science rel., 1923, Vol. XV, p. 244 ff.).

12.  De Lugo, “De Fide,” Dispp. XIX et XX, as cited by F. von Hugel, “Essays and Addresses on the Philosophy of Religion” (first series, London, 1921, p. 252), and by Heiler (op. cit. p. 612) from him.

13.  An encyclical of Pope Pius X concerning St. Charles Borromeo, issued in the year 1910, which by its unfavorable references to the leaders of the Reformation raised a storm in Protestant Germany.

14.  Ep XLIII, i, 1.

15.  Diligite homines, interficite errores, sine superbia de veritate praesumite, sine saevitia pro veritate certate. Orate pro eis, quos redarguitis atque convincitis (Contra litteras Petiliani, iii, Lib. I, 29).

16.  “Reformation und Ketzerprozess,” 1900, p. 36.

17.  “Ad amplexandam fidem catholicam nemo invitus cogatur,” Canon 1351.

Chapter XI: The Sacramental Action of the Church

Christ loved the Church and delivered himself up for it, that he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life (Eph. v, 25-26).

The purpose of the Church is the establishment of the Kingdom of God in the world, and therefore it is the sanctification of men. St. Paul sets forth this purpose in the words: “Christ hath loved the Church and delivered himself up for it, that he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life. That he might present it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish” (Eph. v, 25-27). In those words the apostle sketches an ideal which can never attain complete fulfillment in the Church on earth. For the words which our Lord spoke to His disciples at the Last Supper are true of her: “Ye are clean, but not all” (Jn. xiii, 10). Our Lord foretold only too plainly that there would be cockle among the wheat, bad fish among the good, and that scandals must come. So long as the Church abides in this world, awaiting the coming of the Lord, her prayer will have to be, not only “Hallowed be thy Name, thy Kingdom come!” but also “Forgive us our trespasses, lead us not into temptation!”

But however little the Church of this world can be called a society of saints—and the New Testament too refrains from speaking of a “holy Church” in that sense—yet her whole nature as the Body of Christ aims at that consummation. She seeks to redeem men, all men, in slow but steady process, from their self-centredness, and to form them into new men, children of God, “fellow-citizens with the saints, and the domestics of God” (Eph. ii, 19), into a “kingly priesthood and a holy people” (1 Peter ii, 9). It is from this her essential task that the Church wins that venerable name of “Holy Church,” a title used by the apostolic Fathers and incorporated into the ancient Creeds.