Original Douay–Rheims AnnotationsEphesians 5

Saviour of his body.

^◦ None hath salvation or benefit by Christ, that is not of his body the Church. And what Church that is, S. Augustine expresseth in these words. The Catholic Church only is the body of Christ, whereof he is head, out of this body the Holy Ghost quickeneth no man. And a little after, He that will have the Spirit, let him beware he remain not out of the Church. Let him beware he enter not into it feignedly. August. ep. 50 ad Bonifacium Comitem in fine.

• ◦ No salvation out of the Cath. CHURCH.

Subject to Christ.

^◦ The Church is always subject to Christ, that is, not only under him, but ever obedient to his words and commandment. Which is an evident and invincible demonstration that she never rebelleth against Christ, never falleth from him by error, Idolatry, or false worship, as the Heretics now, and the Donatists or old did teach.

• ◦ The CHURCH never erreth.

Loved the Church.

^[1] Lo Christ's singular love of the Church, for which only & the members thereof he effectually suffered his passion, and for whose continual cleansing and purifying in this life, he instituted holy Baptism and other Sacraments: that at length in the next life it may become without all spot ^[2], wrinkle, or blemish. for, in this world by reason of the manifold infirmities of diverse her members, she cannot be wholly without sin, but must say always, Dimitte nobis debita nostra, Forgive us our debts. August. li. 2. Retract. c. 18.

• 1 Christ's love toward his Church.
• 2 The Church triumphant without spot and wrinkle.

As Christ the Church.

^[1] It is an unspeakable dignity of the Church, which the Apostle expresseth often else-where, but specially in this whole passage, to be that creature only for which Christ effectually suffered, to be washed and embrued with water and blood issuing out of his holy side, to be nourished with his own body (for so doth S. Irenæus expound li. 5. in principio) to be his members, ^[2] to be so joined unto him as the body and members of the same flesh, bone, and substance, to the head; to be loved and cherished of him as wife of husband, yea to be his wife and most dear spouse, taken and formed (as S. Augustine often saith) out of his own side upon the Cross, as Eve our first father Adam's spouse was made of his rib. In Psal. 126. & in Psal. 127. & tract. 9 in Ioan. & tract. 120. In respect of which great dignity and excellency, the same holy father affirmeth the Church to be the principal creature ^[3], and therefore named in the Creed next after the Holy Ghost. and he proveth against the Macedonians, the Holy Ghost to be God, because he is named before the Church in the confession of our faith. Of which incomparable excellency of the Church, so beloved of Christ, and so inseparately joined in marriage with him, if the Heretics of our time had any sense or consideration, they would neither think their contemptible company or congregation to be the glorious spouse of our Lord, ^[4] nor teach that the Church may err, that is to say, may be divorced from her spouse for Idolatry, superstition, Heresy, or other abominations: Whereupon one of these absurdities would ensue, that either Christ may sometimes be without a Church & spouse in earth (as he was all the while there were no Calvinists, if their Church be the spouse of Christ) or else ^[5] if the Catholic Church only is and hath been his wife, and the same have such errors as the Heretics falsely pretend, that his wife so dear and so praised here, is notwithstanding a very whore. Which horrible absurdities prove and convince to any man of common sense, both that the Catholic Church always is, and that it teacheth truth always, and to honour God truly and sincerely always: whatsoever the adulterous generation of Heretics think or blaspheme.

• 1 The manifold dignity of the Church.
• 2 * Aug. li. 1 de Symb. ad Catech. c. 9.
• 3 The Church is the principal creature.
• 4 The Church cannot err.
• 5 Absurdities that follow, if the Church may err.

This is a great Sacrament.

Marriage a great Sacrament of Christ and his Church prefigured in the first parents. Adam (saith S. Augustine tract. 15 in Io. ) who was a form or figure of him that was to come, yea rather God in him, gave us a great token of a Sacrament. For both he deserved sleeping to take a wife, and of his rib his wife was made unto him: because of Christ sleeping on the Cross the Church was to be made out of his side. In another place he maketh Matrimony a Sacrament of Christ and his Church: in that, that as the married man must forsake father & mother and cleave unto his wife, so Christ as it were left his father, exinaniting himself by his incarnation, & left the Synagogue his mother, & joined himself to the Church. Li. 12 c. 8. cont. Faustum ^◦ In diverse other places he maketh it also a Sacrament, specially in that it is an inseparable bond betwixt two, and that can never be dissolved but by death: signifying Christ's perpetual and indissoluble conjunction with the Church his one only spouse. de Gen. ad lit. li. 9. c. 7. Cont Pelag. de pec. orig. li. 2. c. 34. De fid. et op. c. 7. De bono coniug. c. 7. & 18. And in another place, The good of Marriage (saith he) among the people of God is in the holiness of a Sacrament. De bono coniugali c. 24.

Who would have thought such mysteries and Sacraments to be in Marriage, that the joining of man & wife together should represent so great a mystery, if the Apostle himself, & after him this holy father and others, had not noted it? Or who can marvel that the holy Church taketh this to be a Sacrament, ^[1] and to give grace of sanctification to the parties married, that they may live together in mutual fidelity, bring up their children in faith and fear of God, and possess their vessel (as the Apostle speaketh ^[2] ) in sanctification and honour, and not in passion of lust and ignominy, as the Heathen do which know not God, and as our brutish new Masters seem to do that commend marriage above all things so far as it feedeth their concupiscences ^[3], but for grace, Sacrament, mystery, or sanctification thereby, they care no more than the Heathen or brute beasts do? And thus we gather that matrimony is a Sacrament, and not of the Greek word Mystery ^[4] only, as Calvin falsely saith, nor of the Latin word Sacrament ^[5], both which we know have of their nature a more general signification, and that in the Scriptures also: but whereas these names are here given to Matrimony by the Apostle, & are not given in the Scriptures to Baptism and the Eucharist, let them tell us why they also apply these words from their general signification to signify specially and peculiarly those two Sacraments never so named expressly in Scripture, and do not likewise follow the Catholic Church in calling matrimony by the same name, which is here so called of the Apostle, specially whereas the signification in it, is as great as in any other of the Sacraments, and rather greater.

• 1 The grace given by this Sacrament.
• 2 1. Thes. 4.
• 3 The Protestants' fleshly estimation of marriage.
• 4 μυστήριον
• 5 Sacramentum.
• ◦ MATRIMONY a Sacrament.