There is one matter I request you and others (such as Ed, #3) stipulate in further discussions on this board, namely: we do not recognize this vast and cascading confusion of independent churches as “Protestant.” As far as I’m concerned, you could with equal legitimacy refer to them as RC or Orthodox, for they are nothing at all. I model the Reformation as the correction of abuses in the received holy catholic church, with national settlements that are now known as Lutheran (Germany, Sweden), Reformed (Switzerland, Holland), Anglican (England), and Presbyterian (Scotland). All the crackpots that hang a shingle declaring themselves to be a church are no churches at all, let alone Protestant. So please, argue with us in terms of this model, otherwise, you are not arguing with us at all.

Orthodoxy (from the Greek, meaning ‘right belief’ or ‘right worship’) has called Rome heretical, and no amount of ‘ecumenistic fervor’ can change that, as this very catholicity you mention must take precedence, over the personal views of individual men, whether they be EVEN Pope or Ecumenical Patriarch (i.e., the Greek Bishop of Constantinople/ Istanbul)!

Because I have been where you were, I can, (I hope) make some comments (such as above) that will shake faulty cobwebs from the discussion. I do not know ‘brother Ed’ but GV’s reference to the various groups within ‘Roman Catholi-schism’ allude to the possibility that he may be a ‘romanist’ (to use prot vernacular).

Interestingly enough, this one post raises so many issues, that you will be a LONG time dealing with them, before you come to a conclusion (it took me over twenty years, ten of serious study). For instance, your quoting St. Cyprian ““A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed, etc.” did not mention the ‘Tradition’ [II Thess 2:15- it’s apostolic, and biblical, you see!?] that this verse in part refers to the Theotokos, the BVM, and the miracle of her being a Virgin both before, during, and AFTER the Birth of Christ, the Savior. “a spring shut up, a fountain sealed, etc.” To deny this fact of the BVM’s virginity pre AND post, is to partake of Nestorianism, at the very least….

This, of course, puts the Orthodox up against the heretic (for we HAVE to call those who do NOT hold to ALL the decisions of the councils such, or make the concept of a ‘church catholic’ - that which holds’everywhere what has always been believed by all’ as Anglicans were wont to say in their heyday- a sham.

If that is the case, the very commentary on the First Ecumenical Council which gave the world this Creed (minus the filioque, which you did not even TOUCH on!) confronts the vast majority of American Protestants with an inevitable, and very uncomfortable, choice. If you accept the Creed, (and the fact that only in Protestantism, of all the schismatic groups on the planet claiming to be christian, do you have groups claiming ‘no Creed by Christ!”) you have to accept the Creed with the understanding that, in acknowledging catholicity itself, you have to commit all the way:

“For the Church is called catholic,says Cyril the patriarch of Jerusalem…because she teaches catholically, completely and indifferently, all dogmas that offer men knowledge concerting things visible and invisible.’

‘For not the Holy Bible, but the Ecumenical Council is proclaimed by all to be the final judge of ecclesiastical matters, according to C. VI of the 2nd Ecum, C. whose vote and decision is not subject to appeal to any other higher tribunal…’

‘So that the Ecumenical Council sustains the same logical relationship in the State (Dositheus, pp 309 ff of the Dodecabilblus) as the Emperor in the State. I said that the final judge in the Church is not the Holy Bible, as Lutherocalvinists claim, but the Ecumenical Councils, because in many places divine Scripture speaks obscurely or unclearly, and therefore evey one of the heretics can distort the obscure or unclear meaning… in favor of his own heresy, must needs interpret their true meaning because there is no one else that can do this, but the Ecumenical Council.’” (Rudder, p.157, on EC Nicea)

IF that is the case, then, NO, Turretinfan; you, or “MRB and TJH are [NOT] already joined to Him, and are consequently [NOT] a part of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church;”

rather, you are without grace, without sacraments, and without hope in this world. And that is the ‘fence’ that Catholicity MUST fence herself around with, or cease to even BE ‘catholic’ or ‘universal.’

For, as the author of this post very cogently noted, “should we model the church as a complete starting from scratch, or as a continuation of the people of God as they were ushered in under the Old Covenant, with tweaks and adjustments?”

This fact was clearly corroborated by a Calvinist, named Charles Provan, in his excellent book, “The Church is Israel now.”This fact used to be known by all Christendom, both heterodox and orthodox, but, with the rise of those who ’say they are Jews, but are not’ [Rev. 2:8,9] and the heresy of a two-pathed means of salvation [Dispensationalists] this identity of who is the Church, and who is ‘Israel’, has been muddied so badly, that even appeals to the historic councils and the Church fathers falls on deaf ears…..

Until and unless those who claim to follow Christ will enter into the womb of the Church (given concrete visualization through the matrix of the BVM) and be ‘born again,’- through water and blood-the very elements present in human birth- and made real by Orthodox baptism and Eucharist- (for Christ did everything ‘for righteousness sake’ as our exemplar- rather than seek the way of the flesh, or to climb over the wall like a ‘thief and robber’) they cannot understand the ‘mysterium fidei.’

Hard, exclusionary, divisive? Yes. But true.

Please explain your very loose understanding of the concept “one in doctrine and teaching.” Are the Augustinians, Dominicans, and Jesuits “one” in their doctrine and teaching? What about the liberal and conservative arms that exist within Romainsm? It would seem to me that their only real oneness is not in their doctine and teaching, but in their outward allegience pope.

In John 17, Jesus said that our unity, our oneness, would be a testimony to the unbelieving world that the Father had truly sent the Son.

What then is the testimony of the schism and rebellion which Protestantism has indulged itself in for the last 500+ years?

Brother Ed

Brother Ed

-Turretinfan

There is but one Church. With all its problems, odd characters, sinners and saints, you will find it one in doctrine and teaching, a growing, living organism throughout the centuries.

We look forward to your joining Her.

Brother Ed