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- “Anarchist Church, Anarchist State… Anarchist Inquistion?“
- “Stephen Pearl Andrews’ New Catholic Church” (1861)
- Stephen Pearl Andrews, “The Pantarchy Defined—The Word and the Thing” (1873)
- Stephen Pearl Andrews, “A Short Method with the Infallibility of the Pope” (1876)
- Stephen Pearl Andrews’ “New Rendering of Ten Commandments”
- “Statism: It’s not just for dentists anymore…” (1882)
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CONSTITUTION OR ORGANIC BASIS OF THE PANTARCHY
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ARTICLE I.
The Pantarchy is a new spiritual Government for the world, including a new Church and a new State, with all other Subordinate Institutions, Educational, Informational, Honorary, etc., etc., etc.; which are universal in their scope and nature, and which can be devised and established as subservient to the collective wants of mankind.
ARTICLE II.
The New Church, called the New Catholic Church, concerns Itself especially with the culture of the Emotional and Sensational attributes of man, and more especially of these in their higher and Universal Aspect, known as Religion. Government, strictly speaking, belongs, therefore, to the Church only in a subordinate degree, and as relates to its own spiritual and temporal affairs. To this extent it is rightly entrusted to the Hierarchy, Deaconarchy, and Judicatory of the Church, subject still to the superintendence of the State. The design, extent, and attributes of the Church are specially set forth in another document,—the Constitution, or Organic Basis of the New Catholic Church.
ARTICLE III.
The State consists of a Legislative, an Executive, and a Judicial Department. The Legislative Department is denominated the Politarchy, and the body of Superior Legislators is called the Areopagus.
ARTICLE IV.
The business of the Legislature is not to enact Laws arbitrarily, or to make Statutes, but to discover and promulgate the Laws of Nature,—or the Laws of God in Nature; or the Laws of Order and Harmony in the Universe; and to demonstrate the mode and degree of their applicability as guides in the construction and operation of all human Societary Institutions, chiefly, with a minor relation to all human affairs.
The Formal Legislature of the New or Pantarchal State will consist, therefore, of the entire body of Scientists or Thinkers, denizens of the so-called Scientific World, who may choose to organize or embody themselves in the New Order, for the purpose of furnishing to the world at large, the rational law of deportment or conduct in every field of human activity, without constraint or the arbitrary enforcement of their Decrees. The Informal Legislature will consist of such scientific men as may choose to conduct their investigations independently of the Organization, or to be related only to minor organizations; and who will continue, nevertheless, as they are now, to be a part of the law-giving portion of mankind.
The Areopagus, or Superior Legislative Body, corresponding with the British Parliament or the American Congress, consists of those who devote themselves to Sociological Science, with a minor proportion of Theologians. Sociology, or the Science of Society, corresponds with the domain of Politics and Political Economy greatly enlarged; and concerns itself with all the civic, economical, and social relations of men. It is the highest in rank among the Sciences, viewed from the Duismal or Relative point of view, which is also the Positivist, the Scientific and the Rational point of view, and that which must prevail in the external or visible organization of Society. In the Unismal, (1) which is here the Absolute Sense, on the other hand, Theology is the highest of the Sciences. In this latter aspect the Church is higher than the State; but it is only in that sense in which the Woman is the superior of the Man, that is to say, emotionally and sentimentally. Governmentally, “Man is the Head of the Woman,” and the State the Head of the Church. The feminine potentiality of the Woman and of the Church is not rightly, and in major part, expressed in the form of Law and Authority, denouncing the penalties of infraction; but in the form of influx or influence, attraction, exhortation, and appeal. In respect, therefore, to Government and the organic expression of Human Society, Theology is subordinate and auxiliary to Sociology, and the Benches of Theological Bishops are only a minor and subordinate portion of the great parliamentary conclave.
The Legislature of the Pantarchy does not arbitrarily enact Laws; yet it not only promulgates Laws, but announces penalties by virtue of the power which it has of prevision, or the foreknowledge of the consequences which must, by a scientific or logical necessity, result from one or another mode of procedure. It differs from the law-making power of the old-style, arbitrary governments precisely as modern Physiology, in discovering and announcing the Laws of Life and Health, leaving individuals free to apply them (or not to apply them) for their own benefit, differs from the usage of the ancient Egyptian Priesthood, who arbitrarily, and without the aid of Science even, prescribed what each caste or class of persons in the community should be permitted to eat and drink. It is not difficult to see how Modern Science, in the midst of unlimited individual freedom, becomes, by the voluntary obedience of individuals to the hygienic and physiological laws which it promulgates, more truly regulative and sanitary; more truly legislative, in fact, over the deportment of mankind; than the merely instinctive or selfish arbitrium of a Priesthood. What Physiology is doing for the individual—its investigation conducted hitherto in an informal and unorganized manner,—the Pantarchal Legislature proposes to do better by means of organization to that end; and so in each of the special Sciences; and what is or can be done for the individual health and happiness, whether informally or organically, to do also the same for the collective health and happiness of mankind by carrying up the Science of Man from the individual to the collective sphere; from Physiology to Sociology; from self-government by virtue of science to social or political government by the same scientific and rational method.
ARTICLE V.
The Executive Department of the Pantarchal State will have for its office to devise, to organize, and to conduct those Institutions, or instituted forms of the collective life of man, which shall best embody, express, and represent the Laws of Life promulgated by the Legislature, and best subserve the collective wants of all individuals in all spheres; not, again, as arbitrary forms to be imposed upon any one, but as simple means of accommodation to all.
The Executive Department of the Pantarchal State is the Temporal as distinguished from the Spiritual Government. It superintends the Industrial, the Commercial, and the Financial relations of mankind. Informally, it consists at this day of the great self-elected chiefs of Industry, Commerce, and Finance, the Abbot Lawrences, the George Laws, and the Baron Rothschilds, who are more effectively governors of the world than the so-called governments. The work of these Temporal Governors has been hitherto the creation and accumulation of wealth. Their methods have often seemed cruel, tyrannical, and oppressive, like those of the governments of the past in general; but the work to which they have been instinctively impelled is one of immense value to the race. They are providing the solid material basis upon which the future prosperity of mankind must rest. The wealth of the world is now augmenting with astounding rapidity. Eighty years ago there was nothing on the planet that we should now dignify by the name of machinery. Sixty years ago there was no Chemistry, there was no application, in fine, of Science to wealth-producing purposes and never had been any in the world. Half of these short periods was given to getting ready to work. Thirty and forty years measure the date, therefore, during which the Industrial Revolution has been progressing under the auspices of Science, and hitherto informally, unorganically conducted. And yet how magnificent the results! Still, up to this day the new and potentialized industry has established itself only at a few points on the surface of the earth, the Manchesters, the Lowells, etc. Now, it is spreading over the whole earth; and at the same time discovery and invention are, themselves, progressing in a geometrical ratio. Add the new accumulations from mechanical and chemical instrumentalities, now just fairly established and capable of production, to the spread of such applications as are now known over the whole field of human activity; and this again to the immense potency of the new knowledges that are being every day evolved; and there is no arithmetic which will not demonstrate, that in a few years this whole world is destined to be overflowing with wealth. In this respect experience is of no value. The poverty-stricken condition of all human societies in the past is no criterion for the future.
Wealth will soon so abound that mere wealth will confer no distinction. Wisdom in the use of wealth for the common weal will then be the distinctive characteristic of the true Temporal Governors. For such wisdom they will come gradually but speedily, under the loving persuasions of the Church, to appeal to the Legislature, the Spiritual or Rational Government of the New State; will submit themselves voluntarily and gladly to its authority; and will achieve for themselves positions of great eminence, as a body, in just subordination to the Thinking Head of the World. Avenues will be opened for the gratification of the noblest ambitions in every direction in the application of wealth. Honors, Dignities, Rank, Titles, and Decorations will be conferred by the Supreme Government for every grand achievement of a humanitary kind, until an enthusiasm of competition and co-operation will be aroused among the rich, to test who can surpass the others in the munificence of their donations and bequests to the Church and the State, and in the genius of adaptation they can display in the administrative service of man Organized for the greatest efficiency to such ends under the direction of the Scientific Chiefs, the great body of Temporal Chiefs will become the regular and recognized Executive Department of the Pantarchal State, or, in the phrase of “Positivism,” the Temporal Government of the race.
ARTICLE VI.
The Judicial Department of the New State will consist, as now, of the Courts of Judicature, which will be organized for the decision, as umpires, of all vexed questions in practical life, in accordance with the Laws promulgated by the Legislature, that is to say, in accordance with natural right; and between parties who voluntarily submit themselves to their jurisdiction, or who, as subjects of the New State, may with its growth or development be required to do so, and to abide by the decision, under penalty of being deprived in part or in full of the benefits which the State will have the ability to confer.
More immediately connected with the Legislature and the Supreme Government, will be the Grand Court of the Inquisition, re-established with more than all the rigor and efficiency of its history in the past; but with this difference, that the Inquisition of the Pantarchy, instead of applying its tortures to the bodies of men, will put to the question the principles of Nature and Nature herself, compelling them to confess their most hidden secrets through the severest trials which they are able to endure. It will be the business of the Inquisition to bring to every variety of test all pretended new Principles, Discoveries, and Inventions, in every department of life; to force from them the fullest disclosure of their promise of value to mankind; and to report to the government all such as survive the trial, for promulgation to the world, with a recommendation to governmental aid of the most valuable and the most needy. The Inquisition will be, therefore, the patron institution and the foster-parent of the discoverers, inventors, and reformers.
ARTICLE VII.
The State, by virtue of its legislative function as the discoverer, interpreter, and promulgator of intellectual Laws or Truths, is not only the civic government of the world at large, but is the governor, in respect to such truths, of the Church as well, while the Church is, in turn, represented in the State, by the Theological Bishops and Clergy. It is the special function of the Church relatively to the State, to inspire into the scientific and practical minds of the Spiritual and Temporal Governors, the Love of Moral Goodness and Truth, and of Philanthropic Endeavor in every sphere or department of life. The Executive of the State is, however, represented in the Deaconarchy of the Church, a body of practical and executive men who devote themselves to the administration of the temporalities of that body. The Church and the State thus interlock with and embrace each other. The prolification from that embrace must be Peace, Prosperity, and Happiness, temporal and eternal. The State is husband to the Church. It is the duty of the husband to love, cherish, and protect the wife; to sustain and defend her; to instruct her; to reveal to her more clearly her own nature; and condescendingly and lovingly, to yield himself to the refining and elevating influences which it is her prerogative to impart. The Areopagus, or Supreme Conclave of Science, must interpret for the Church the symbolical significance and the profound scientific correspondences of the Dogmas and Rites which she has instinctively adopted, and hitherto mystically held and taught; must translate her intuitional aspirations and obscure faith into the language of pure reason; must learn of her to feel experimentally the substance of which Science thus supplies the form; and so act as guardian and instructor, without damage, still, to the Spirituality or the Devotion, of the Church.
ARTICLE VIII.
The Church and State constitute conjointly what may be denominated The Publicate as distinguished from The Domesticate, another Grand Department of the total Societary Order, subordinate to but closely allied with the former. This, in turn, has its corresponding subdivisions. The Publicate is predominantly administered by men, with a minor proportion of such women as have tastes and capacity fitting them for participation in public affairs. The Domesticate is predominantly administered by women, aided and co-operated with, however, by a minor proportion of men, whose organizations and tendencies prescribe for them that function. The nature and scope of the Domesticate, or of the Domestic Order of The New Social World, require, as in the case of the Church, to be set forth in a distinct and special document.
ARTICLE IX.
The Pantarchy is a Grand Composite Order of Government, reaching with its influences every department of human affairs, and involving in itself, and reconciling with each other, in a compound harmony, the Monarchical, the Aristocratic, and the Democratic Principles; hitherto deemed irreconcilable with each other; or, at best, but partially reconciled and actually hindering each other in the so-called Mixed Governments of the past
ARTICLE X.
The great Thinkers and Philanthropists, Wise Reformers, truly broad and aspiring Religious natures devoted to the spiritual elevation of mankind, the great. Literary and Artistic Geniuses, great Organizing Minds, those who devise and achieve splendid Industrial Designs; those, in fine, who distinguish themselves in any manner indicating Grandeur of Soul, are The True Nobility of the Race; and should be recognized and constituted, by a true Universal Spiritual Government, into The Aristocracy of the World. We speak instinctively of Nature’s Noblemen and Noblewomen. It is the function of a true Government to cause all such to assume their true places in the eye of the world, so that they may shed the influence of illustrious example on others from the highest position which society is able to confer. High blood, or a descent from superior stocks, is also a legitimate ground of distinction among men, and must remain entitled to its natural weight in determining the social rank of the citizen, but not in the future so as to overshadow the superior claims of individual worth or achievement. The Aristocracies of the past have been based chiefly on military prowess In this age, the Aristocracy of Wealth is rising into importance. Higher than all is the Aristocracy of Intellect, consecrated and devoted to the Highest Humanitary and Religious ends,—Conquest in the field of pure Thought and Sentiment translated into Practical Life. The Pantarchal State will deny none of these claims, but, by a Reconstruction of the Heraldic Schedule of the Planet, will assign to each class of True Dignitaries their relative rank.
ARTICLE XI.
As Head of the Pantarchal State, representing the monarchical principle, or Individuality of Lead, is the Individual, self-elected, but powerless except as he is voluntarily acknowledged and obeyed, who is most conscious of power to devise, constitute, and direct a Just, Harmonious, and Triumphant Social Organization, adapted to the wants of all mankind,—power to lead in—through Science, and the Revival of Faith, and the Co-operation of the Spirit World, and the Divine Guidance back of all—the period of the reconciliation of all conflicts; the harmonial or millennial age; the Golden Age of the Future. The office of this functionary is the Pantarchate; his title, Pantarch; his function, the service of all; his diploma, the greater capacity to serve. All are free to devise plans and to organize departments of administration as large as they feel in themselves consciousness of the power to wield. As these shall prove themselves beneficent, and seek affiliation with the Pantarchy, they can come into subordinate relations with it in accordance with their rank and worth. Should rivalries spring up with the State itself, contest will ensue, transferred from the battle-field, however, to friendly competition for superior Grandeur of Design, and Power of Beneficent Accomplishment to serve and to bless mankind. In such a conflict, he who loses will gain, as truly as he who wins.
ARTICLE XII.
The Pantarch, aided by the counsel of the first minds in all spheres, so far and so fast as they can be attracted to co-operate, will be the self-constituted Fountain of Honor; or the agency rather, for the recognition and promulgation of the inherent titles to honor which exist in individuals; will confer Patents of Nobility, and all other marks of distinction, with scientific exactitude in the discrimination of rank; will organize, in fine, a Court, and a veritable Aristocracy, beginning in Democratic America, and extending to all parts of the world. All men have in them inherently the love of pomp and luxury, and approbation; honors, decorations, and rank. However much a few intellectual anchorites may repress in themselves these dispositions, and affect to despise them in others, this is merely a reaction from inversion or undevelopment in their uses in the past, and will cease when they are rightly applied, as incentives to a noble life. The great Heart of Humanity, and more than all, the female heart, the just gauge of sentiment, beats sympathetically with them. Essentially, what Humanity ever has been, Humanity ever will be. Refinement and Elevation reach not the substance of things, but their form. Even Spiritualization only causes a change in the preponderance of tendencies, without destruction to any that were ever normal or true. In a true Social Order, every normal passion of the Soul must find its appropriate gratification and use. Those which have been most loudly decried, will prove to be, when scientifically understood and adjusted, the most potent springs of harmonious and beneficent human activity. Honors thus conferred will be, in fact, no more than nominations by the government to the people, of meritorious individuals for the reception of such exalted consideration as can alone be conferred in the end by the people themselves. The popularity and continuance in power of the Government itself will depend among other similar titles, upon its just discrimination and judiciousness in selecting and designating the genuine nobility,—and in assigning to the different sections of society their true relative rank. This will constitute the scientifically adjusted and effectual check upon favoritism and false honors in every sphere; and this, in turn will give a real value to the honors which are conferred, as virtually they will be conferred, both by the government and the people.
The first step in reform is always in the direction of the denial of the tendency to luxury, and the repression of the natural desires. Evil is discovered to flow, in some way, from indulgence, and the simplest and most ready remedy is to suppress the natural promptings to the special gratification which leads to the evil. This drift is sometimes called Stoicism, sometimes Morality, sometimes Reform, and sometimes a return to the State of Nature; hence the hair cloth and the cave in the earth of the old sages, the drab colors and plain dress of the followers of George Fox; the bran bread, the linsey-woolsey, and the red brogans of modern reformers; sumptuary laws; the tub of Diogenes, and the parsimony of Poor Richard. All the religious sects, all schools of Ethical Philosophy, all systems of Domestic and Social Polity, which have professed to be Reformatory, have gone in the same track,—the repression of the passions; the subjugation of the natural man to the domination of restrictive opinion or restrictive legislation. Each new sect has in turn thus hacked at and endeavored to exterminate some portion of the man. Presbyterianism feels and fears the evils of dissipation from the accompaniments of dancing,—from obeying the God-inspired love of the poetry of motion. Ignorant of any higher method, and well-meaning, it prescribes the extermination, by non-use, of the desire; the destruction of one of the faculties of the soul in the cause of virtue; a process as effective and of the same character as the palsy and shriveling of the arm of the Indian Faquir, from holding it extended or bound to his body for years in the service of the same idea. Quakerism sees the same or similar evils in the indulgence of the musical faculty and taste; and prescribes the extermination of another portion of the soul. Shakerism detects the anti-spiritualizing tendency of the sexual appetite during the stages of inferior development in the race, and subjects it to the same process of destruction; and so, the other sects in religion, morality, and law. As a first step, this philosophy of repression is good, because it is a necessary stage through which the progress of the race has to pass, and because it prepares that basis of moderation upon which all genuine and healthful indulgencies must rest. Persisted in, it would terminate in its logical finality, which is Idiocy, or, the absolute extinction of every faculty of the Human Soul.
The true progress of development is from Unism through Duism to Trinism, which last is Composity, or in this connection an infinitely varied and luxurious gratification, in true subordination and harmony, of all the natural tendencies of the soul, from the lowest animal appetites up to the love of God. The second step in reform is therefore just the opposite of the first. It reverts, from the suppression of the passions or desires, or motor forces of the soul, to their development and harmonization, through the numerousness, exuberance, and balanced action of them all.
Justified therefore by science, the Pantarchal Court will ultimately exceed in magnificence all the royal splendors of the past. The Rings of the earth will gather at it, as dukes and barons now gather at the Courts of Rings. All the refinements of Nature and Science and Art and Religion, will be cultured there, and go forth, as from a spiritual focus, radiating gracefulness, and beauty, and charm, to the remotest portions of the earth. The progress of material reform, the application of science to the production of wealth, will soon load the planet with abundance; but abundance without culture would prove debasing and destructive in the extreme. Society would rot of its own grossness. A refined court has always been, and must always be, the fountain of refining influences shed upon the people. A new chivalry, a new sentiment of honor and courtesy, regardful of all titles to respect, from the humblest to the highest; devotion to all truth; the whole life of the individual, the nation, the world, made happy, religious, refined; attractive industry, crowned with adequate honors; the Theatre vying with the Church and the Church with the Theatre, in the purity and the elevation of their influences; these and other similar thoughts inspire the design of a Pantarchal and Paternal Government; a spiritual co-ordination of the whole human family in accordance with harmonic laws, rising in the midst of and above all national and sectarian differences, and commanding, by its own superior tendencies, the deference, the veneration, the acceptance, and, finally, the allegiance of all.
To conduct the world to such a result, if practicable at all,—and different men will differ in their measure of faith in respect to it,—must obviously demand the services of the highest order of sociological talent, aided by new discovery and the co-operative sympathy of great numbers. The democratic idea alone is not equal to the task. If to build a bridge or a railroad requires the Single Man, the Engineer, whose knowledge of the way is more than that of all the owners of the work even, how much more important that the complicated problems of society shall be threaded, and its construction engineered, by a mind competent by organization and training to that end!
ARTICLE XIII.
As the substratum, the basis, and the support of a true Aristocracy and a true Monarchy must be a truly constituted and contented Democracy, the Sovereignty of every Individual, solely limited at the point where encroachment upon the equal freedom of others would begin, is the foundation of all true Hierarchical and Supreme Sovereignty. The Pantarch is, therefore, the most dependent of men. He is monarch only by virtue of his daily and hourly re-election by the people, in consideration of the continuation of popular benefits which he, in a higher degree than other men, is able, by their co-operation, to confer. The doctrine of checks and balances in government is here, therefore, carried to its highest perfection; absolute Democracy and a beneficent despotism co-working harmoniously with each other, supplying the benefits and neutralizing the evils of each; the tormenting problem of human government scientifically solved.
ARTICLE XIV.
If it be objected that the theory of the Pantarchy is too perfect; that it is fitted only for the government of men through their higher natures, which are but poorly developed, as yet; and that it lacks the element of force,—let it be so understood for the present; and the reply to be made is, That the old-style governments remain still in existence, and will remain in existence, so long as the demand for them remains. With a reduced prominence of the elements of force, and fear, and punishment, in the government of men; and with the relative importance of the old style governments, in comparison with the new style, gradually declining; it may be admitted even that they will still be a perpetual necessity. There is no reason in this, however, why a different order of Government, based on attraction and rewards, and benefits conferred, with the possibility of their being withdrawn as a penalty, should not plant itself in their midst, and gain its ascendancy over that portion of mankind who shall be found amenable to superior motives. The police function of the old governments will only be relieved so far, and in proportion as, through this instrumentality aided by all others, the standard of development in the race is made higher, and the supremacy of the Spiritual Government is confirmed.
It should, therefore, be well understood that the Pantarchy does not place itself in a hostile attitude to any of the existing Governments of the earth. It appears in the world and tenders its services as the friend and counsellor and helper as well of the Governments as of the Peoples, aided in its counsel by the science and all the influences at its command. It aspires to become by voluntary selection the Umpire between Kings, Emperors, and Republics, and between rulers and their revolting subjects, and so to supply that great International Tribunal of which there is a felt and growing want in the world, and for which a Congress of Nations has been suggested. By this means it aspires to contribute to peace, to enable Governments to reduce their hostile armaments, and finally to abolish them; to infuse into them, so far as applicable, its own more scientific and humane methods, to procure their recognition of the rightfulness of its own position as mediator between them; and finally, their voluntary submission to its superior authority and the assumption of their positions as branches or departments of the planetary government. They will then become the Temporal Branch of the Spiritual Government, as the Great Financial Men are the Spiritual Branch of the Temporal Government.
The Pantarchy will, therefore, so soon as its number of talented men and the state of its treasury will admit, send ambassadors to every court, to explain the nature of its own constitution and purposes, to satisfy the governments of its peaceable and co-operative intentions; to commend to them a study of its principles of government; to tender its mediatorial services; to negotiate for a unitary system of weights and measures, coinage, finance, &c., and for the introduction of science, and a unitary policy for the race in all practicable ways, to take the place of arbitrary regulations and narrow and restrictive systems of legislation now and heretofore prevalent among them.
ARTICLE XV.
Among the fruits of Universology is a Universal Language now being elaborated, called Tïkïwã (Teekeewah), not an arbitrary invention or contrivance, but, like musical science, the result of the discovery of certain fundamental laws, which, in this case, determine the analogical significance of the elementary sounds of the human voice, and the mode of their combination into words and sentences naturally expressive of given ideas. This New and Universal Language will be Universal, however, only in the same sense as the Pantarchal Government will be Universal. It does not propose to supersede directly any of the existing languages, nor finally, even, to dispense with the material found in any of them. It will plant itself in the midst of them, will come to their aid wherein they are individually defective; will supply a new and rational and inexhaustible fountain for the coinage of all Abstract, Scientific, and Technical Terms; so that these new and rapidly augmenting portions of human speech shall have a uniform derivation, and shall preserve a uniform pronunciation in all languages over the world. It will thus put an end to that interminable confusion of technicalities now being formed, guided by no principle, chiefly from the Greek, but also from other sources, and furnish at the same time a basis of Unity, in pronunciation as well as in derivation, between different tongues. It will, in the next place, modify the formative processes now operating in every living language, conforming them gradually to its own central idiom, preparatory to the ultimate subsumption of them all, as branches of one great universal language for the whole earth. A congress of Philologians and Linguists will assemble at the Court of the Pantarchy, engaged upon settling minor details of the Universal Alphabet, and in forwarding generally the development of the Tïkïwã, its adaptations to the particular languages, and the possible modifications of which they are susceptible under the influence of its universal laws. Thus the Pantarchy will in all ways tend to the Unity of the Race, not by arbitrary means, but by attraction, by service, and by intellectual achievement.
ARTICLE XVI.
The Governments and the Aristocracies of the world now extant, are derived almost wholly from the military achievements of ancestors. This is characteristic of an age of physical force. Let these institutions stand for all they may be worth in the future. But let the Heroes of Thought of this intellectual age assert their own dignity and rank. At present they stand as lackeys in the courts of a greatness essentially less than their own. They need only a scientific organization, a competent leadership, and a specific dedication of their services to the well being of mankind, in order to assume their true place as the higher or Spiritual Government, sustained by the grateful and enthusiastic devotion of all. The splendors of the Court will be exhibited chiefly by opulence and art resident there. The sciento-legislative body will naturally continue to practice a severe and chaste economy, characteristic of intellectual tendencies or the dignity of thought. At the beginning, also, and during the transition from the old to the new order of things, the New Government will be poor, and will call far more for devotion through privation and for sacrifices, on the part of its own members and adherents, than for the glories of triumphal display.
ARTICLE XVII.
At headquarters, and from the first, the Pantarchal Government will be engaged in organizing ideally, and so far as may be, practically, in germ, all the departments of its immense domain. Its programmes will be published and constantly enlarged. A Privy Council will be formed by the selection of pivotal persons in every great department of human affairs. Privacy and Publicity will each be employed as instrumentalities of intellectual conquest, in proportion to the demand for each. Honorary titles will be conferred, and rank assigned. The Areopagus will be organized, with germs of the subordinate legislative branches. Practical enterprises of a reformatory kind will be aided from the treasury as it shall be filled. Alliances will be sought with the financial and industrial princes of the earth, as well as with existing governments. The New Catholic Church will be embodied, and friendly and co-operative relations established so far as possible between it and all existing religious organizations, etc., etc., etc. A Court Journal, when determined on as judicious, will be published, to communicate to the subjects of the new government the action of the government and the progress of events.
Among the less immediate and more permanent functions of the New Government will be to maintain the true teachers and pioneers of the progress of the race, while at their work, in the place of maintaining an army of useless politicians and sinecure place-men in church and state, and elsewhere, to publish all scientific and other works of a highly useful nature, but not promising a circulation extended enough to reward private enterprise; to co-operate with inadequate private ability, in the same manner, in respect to all inventions and discoveries; to anticipate the public appreciation of all new and true things, and aid them to achieve a public recognition, and to do so with a constantly accumulating authority by virtue of other similar services already rendered; and especially to lead the way to the extinction of all slaveries, without violence or loss, by demonstrating the problem of Attractive Industry in all spheres; to organize Industrial Armies for the conquest of swamp lands, deserts, mountain-passes, the opening of mines, harbors, etc.; to maintain scientific expeditions and experiments, especially such as directly affect the best modes of living and the social happiness of man; to favor organized emigration, etc., etc., etc.
ARTICLE XVIII.
Finally, the Pantarchy in respect to its Treasury, the great means of performing its function in the world, adopts the principle of Voluntaryism in respect to the State as well as in respect to the Church. “All governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Such is the language of the American Declaration of Independence. Such is supposed to be the basis upon which rests the present government of the United States—a basis towards which all other liberal governments are professedly tending—a principle adopted of late in France, in Italy, and elsewhere. But let any individual resident in any of these countries decline or refuse to obey the constituted governments which happen to exist there, or to pay his quota for the support of them, and he will soon find, by penalties inflicted, that it is a government to which he has given no consent, but which he expressly repudiates, which has obtained power over him, and which will compel him to obey and to contribute of his substance to the means of strengthening and perpetuating the compulsion. He will find that it is not his own will but the will of a Majority of the nation, not of .the present day even, but of some former time, now assumes as perpetual, by governors wholly different in all respects, it may be, from those to whom the fathers gave their allegiance, which must determine his duties, control his conduct, and compel his obedience.
A government based on the will of a Majority is not based on the will of the governed if the governed, happen to belong to the Minority.
In respect to Church matters, for more than two centuries, in England and New England, the battle has been waged by the Minority in behalf of their right to manage their own affairs, to constitute and obey the Government of their own choice, and to he rid of the impertinent assumption by a Majority of the right to rule over them, by mere virtue of being a Majority.
Curiously enough, daring the same period, in the sphere of Politics, the Right of the Majority to Govern has been not only admitted or endured, but affirmed and lauded as the last word of Political Philosophy in behalf of Freedom. Still, Majority-rule is as much a tyranny as Despotism.
The Pantarchy consecrates the same principle of Voluntaryism in the Church and in the State. Taxes are only levied by voluntary contribution; authority only exercised over those who intelligently accept its rightfulness; contented Individualities as the logical basis of “Contented Nationalities.” It was believed that no Church could exist under the financial aspect of the Voluntary Principle. Experience in America, where all the Churches are supported in that way, has exploded this theory in respect to the Church, and will do so, everywhere, in respect to the State.
The relations of the subjects of the Pantarchy to the Pantarch and Subordinate Functionaries, that of subordination and obedience within the sphere of the specific action of the government—while the relation exists—with the perpetual right of Revolt, or the withdrawal of Allegiance, admitted, taught, insisted upon, as the safeguard of the Individual, are identical with those of Church-members to the Head and the Hierarchy of the Church, as more specifically set forth in the Church-basis.
All persons, who believe in the fundamental Principle of Pantarchism—the reconciliation of major and minor Leadership, Authority, Organization, Obedience, Discipline, Order, and Conservatism, on the one hand; with Individuality, the Sovereignty of every Individual, Development, Freedom, and Progression, on the other, united by scientific adjustment and co-ordination; the combination and harmonization of the Despotic, the Aristocratic, and the Democratic Principles, each fully ultimated in a grand composite Order of Government—are Pantarchists. Those who formally give in their Allegiance to the Pantarch, and make themselves subjects of the new Government, are called Pantarchians; they become citizens, wherever they reside, of the New Kingdom; without, however, thereby renouncing or affecting any allegiance due by them to other potentates. The conflict of jurisdictions, if any occurs, is matter to be settled by negotiation between the governments, or in some instances by the private judgment of the individuals assuming the consequences.
All Pantarchists are solicited, and all Pantarchians required, to pay a stated Rent or Tribute, much or little, into the Treasury of the Pantarchy. The Treasury will depend on voluntary Taxation; on Bequests and Donations from the rich; on voluntary tythings by those in comfortable circumstances; on “Peter Pence” from the poor.
ARTICLE XIX.
The first or immediate levy of Taxes is for the purpose of aiding the Pantarch in the first steps of organization; for supplying Copyists and Amanuenses requisite for opening an extensive correspondence with the leading Thinkers and Philanthropists in the world; for printing and circulating the Programmes and the Chronicles of movement; for publishing the discoveries of Universology (the science of universal analogy, or the unity of system in the universe, making, in a certain sense, all the sciences into one), and the related Philosophy of Integralism; for publishing the Scientific and Religious Significance and Solution of Modern Spiritualism and its relations to the destiny of the world, the Scientific and Peaceful Solution of American Slavery, and other works; for organizing the Universal Intelligence Office or Bureau of Supply and Demand, a Programme of which is already among the published documents of the Pantarchy, etc., etc., etc.
ARTICLE XI.
Beginning with the world still lying in poverty, oppression, and wretchedness, the Pantarchy assumes to be able, through New Science, the Science of Organization, aided by all benign spiritual revelations and influx, to conduct society to its true Harmonial destiny on earth; until the whole people shall be housed in palaces; until the earth shall be cultivated like a garden; until Equity, and Honor, and Religion, shall reign universally; until health and beauty shall be the common inheritance; until all human affairs shall be radiant with a True Millennial Glory. To that end it must become the almoner of the benefactions of the rich, and the depository of the pittances of the poor. It demands the cooperation of all. All are, in fact, entitled to the pleasures and the honors of such cooperation for such ends. Personal confidence in the Leader of such a work,—in his profound knowledge of principles; in his boundless impersonality and love of man; in his wisdom in the choice of subordinates and cooperators; in his untiring perseverance, and practical capacity to direct,—must supervene upon the greatness of the purpose, and the magnificence of the scheme. This must be the result of Intuitive Recognition, of Time, of Inquiry, of Observation, of Judgment, of all the faculties and means, in fine, whereby we judge of men. The knowledge of Principles and Purposes should, however, precede the investigation of the competency of Individuals. If, therefore, at the outset, a slight veil of concealment is thrown around the personality of the movement, there is no permanent intention of disguise. It is solely that ideas wholly new, may escape, at the moment of their presentation, the too favorable or unfavorable impression which might result from prior associations of thought. Subsequent and early steps in the movement will clear away all traces of mystery, and claim from the World such estimate as may be due to the Personal Weight of Character associated with the Principles and the Plan.
ANDRUSIUS, Pantarch.
For further information, apply, by letter, to the
HON. MICHAEL A. CLANCY,
NEW YORK.
CONSTITUTION OR ORGANIC BASIS OF THE NEW CATHOLIC CHURCH
Provisionally Expounded and Adopted
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ARTICLE I.
CONSTITUENCY OF THE CHURCH.
The Church is the world. The Church universal can do no less than embrace all mankind. This is in the largest or most extended meaning of the term. In another sense, the true Catholic Church is an interior organized body, which should be the spiritual mother of the race. The relation between mother and child exists equally, whether the children have so grown as to recognize the mother’s face or not. .So, in the world, great numbers of men and women have not hitherto known any spiritual mother, nor consciously recognized their need of one. Others following legitimately the analytical processes of the intellect, or the self-assertive instinct of individuality, have been led to deny and abjure all relation to the Church; the truth of their essential and spiritual unity with the race and hence with the true spiritual Church, is not, however, affected thereby.
These two classes of persons, the uninformed or ignorant, and the intelligently infidel, belonging, equally with the most spiritualizcd or sanctified persons, to the Church Universal, should be the especial objects of the labors and care of the more interior body. Sometimes, also, as to their own interiors, individually, these persons are wholly intromitted into and most centrally located within the Interior Church; only, so long as they themselves do not recognize their interior unit with the organized body they cannot be consociated with it in its worship and its exterior activities.
ARTICLE II.
EXTENSION OF THE CHURCH’S DOMAIN.
The field is the world. The extension of the Church’s domain, or field of Labor, is therefore co-equal with the personal constituency of the Church. Outwardly, it extends, geographically, over the whole earth, embracing all nations and climes. Upwardly and downwardly it embraces all spheres, supernal and infernal, which may exist, and which pertain by their connections to the human race, since all the interests of the race are adopted by and become the interests of the Church. Protensively, or as relates to time, the Church in its essential or spiritual existence, goes back to the origin of man and forward to eternity. As to its organic expression, or instituted authority, it is more or less perfect in different ages, and passes through a succession of orders or dispensations. The incipient organization of the New Catholic Church marks the ushering in of a new dispensation. It is in this sense only that it is called New. In another sense this so-called New Catholic Church is identical with the Church of the past, the present, and the future, whether called Catholic, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Mahommedan, Hebrew, Egyptian, Brahminical, Booddhist, Tauist, or any other. It is the integration of all modes of expressing and cultivating the religious sentiments of the race.
ARTICLE III.
QUALITY AND ATTRIBUTES OF THE CHURCH.
The office of the Church is to inspire goodness and wisdom and a divinely spiritualized energy into individuals, and thereby into the race; to elevate man from a natural state of crudity, which, whether it be called sin and regarded as rebellion against God, or as ignorance and undevelopment, is that from which he needs to be rescued or saved. The Church must, therefore, possess goodness and wisdom and power in herself, and can only justify her existence in so far as she exhibits these attributes in a degree above that of natural or unregenerate men. It is, therefore, the duty of the Church to preside, with her spiritual influences, over all human affairs, domestic, social, industrial, educational, political, and the like, and to infuse into them that elevation of purpose, universality of scope, and unselfish devotion which pertain to the highest ideal of religion, and which are themselves derived from aspiration to the infinite. All this should be done by the Church without encroachment upon the legitimate domain of the educational, the governmental, or any other department of the Constituted Societary Order.
ARTICLE IV.
EMBODIMENT OF THE CHURCH.
The Church embracing in its constituency, theoretically, the whole world of rational beings, a portion of whom are, however, unconscious of the benefits which they might or do derive from her existence and labors, is bound to respect the individuality of those who decline to become members of the visible body. There is, therefore, necessarily an External and an Internal Church within the Church Universal, the former of which is only theoretically or prospectively a portion of the Church. This portion of mankind is often distinguished from the Church proper or the organized Church, as “The World,” or in the language of the old theology, as “the Unregenerate World.” The Interior Church may also be denominated the Formal Church, and all other persons the Informal Church. When in the final fruition of the Church triumphant all shall be reconciled and brought within the visible body, there will still, doubtless, remain an external and more numerous circle, who will be in preponderance recipient of the benefits of the more internal and spiritually efficient portion of the Church.
Intermediate to the External Church, now represented by “the World,” and the Internal Church, is the circle or class of Neophites, Catechumens or Inquirers, members in partial communion with the Church. These are such as are preparing themselves and awaiting their admission to the full privileges of the Church, or else of such as enter into this partial relation for the purpose of better investigation and of satisfying themselves whether the relation of full membership would conduce to their spiritual welfare. The Interior Church consists of all the full members remaining in good and regular standing.
The Church is first embodied, therefore, in three concentric circles; external, intermediate or transitional and internal. Each of these circles is subdivided into numerous subordinate circles and sections scientifically arranged, and constituting the different Orders in the Church. Of the three primitive circles the external is, pro tempore, the world; the intermediate is the united body of half-members, and the interior or formal Church the united body of the full communicants.
But in another sense, any particular congregation of the acceptors of the faith and doctrine of the New Catholic Church is denominated a Church; and the Church in the general sense consists of the aggregate of such particular Churches, or associated bodies. For the sake of distinction it is better that the particular Churches be denominated Church-congregations each of which will have, likewise, its three circles, the external usually called the congregation, the transitional, including the young and others who are investigating or preparing for membership, and the internal Church-congregation, or the church.
ARTICLE V.
GENESIS OF THE CHURCH.
The Church began with the origin of the race, and keeps pace in its development with the development of the race. In the earlier ages, and in those countries still which have least completely emerged from the doctrine of those early times, God was conceived of as embodied in every portion of nature, or more particularly in certain particular objects or forms; whence arose the Fetish and Idol. In worshiping these the conception of the divine Unity was lost. On the other hand, in the same early times other minds conceived of God as a Being of absolute Unity, elevated by his ineffable perfection above all relations with the world and all concernment in its affairs. The contending principles of Variety and Unity were thus separately represented in the theological sphere. Subsequently arose the conception of God as the embodiment of inexorable, abstract law, the supreme Jehovah or God of the Jews. By the gracious teachings of Christ the attribute of love and the character of a benign Father were assigned to the Supreme Being; and with this change religion was carried up into the region of the affections, and claimed the hearts of its subjects.
Within the body of the Christian Church of the past the same differences reappear and are repeated in the dogmas of conflicting sects. These differences arise partly out of the essential difficulty of compassing any adequate idea of God, who is essentially incomprehensible, in his fullness, by the finite mind; partly out of the intrinsic individualities of different minds and of different nationalities and other masses of mind; and partly out of the undevelopment of the race hitherto, which has precluded the discovery and entertainment of so complex or compound an idea as that of the New Catholic Church, which is Integralism or the reconciliation of infinite Variety in Unity. The Trinitarian affirms God as three persons, not however denying but equally affirming their essential Unity. The Unitarian insists exclusively on the conception of absolute Unity. The Pantheist finds God represented in every object of nature, and thus virtually re-affirms the doctrine of an infinite variety of Gods, or of embodied objects representative of God. The Atheist, searching, through the intellect, to find God by the analytical process, arrives at zero and reports the result of his investigation as his contribution to the aggregate of truth; the Transcendentalist refines and elevates and attenuates his conception until he returns to the Brahminical idea of the Absolute, also equal, for the finite mind, to annihilation or zero:
The differences in respect to church organization have been identical in kind with those thus affecting the central doctrine of the church. The Catholic Church represents the doctrine of Unity in organization, in dogma, in spirit; Protestantism and its divergent adjuncts, Infidelity and Atheism, represent the principle of Variety in faith and organization; or, more properly, the inherent principle of Variety, or Individuality, in the nature of things, is embodied and exhibited in their: organizations and creeds.
Finally arises the New Catholic Church, based on the scientific discovery of principles which accept, and justify, and mediate between, and reconcile, not only all the conflicting sects of Christendom, but all the conflicting religions of the past and present, in the higher, and more spiritual, and wiser religious movements of the future. The dogma of the New Catholic Church capable of fitting it for this great mediatorial work, is more fully stated under the subsequent head of Faith and Practice.
ARTICLE VI.
ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH.
The problem of Church Government, as of all governments, has been to reconcile Order and Efficiency with Freedom. The New Catholic Church attains this end by recognizing both the despotic or hierarchical principle and the democratic or populary principle—both as inherent and inexpugnable principles in the constitution of the human mind, and of every organization; by defining each, and by confining them, respectively, to their own legitimate spheres. In all organization for practical action and efficiency, the Individuality which gives freedom finds a new and apparently opposite application in the doctrine of Individuality of Lead. These two opposite principles, or opposite applications of the same principle, the Divergent Individuality of isolated or separate personal freedom, and the Convergent Individuality: which centres upon a chief or head, and as it were voluntarily and yet intelligently or wisely gives itself away to enable him to execute some grand design by the aid of the associated individuals, and for the common good, find through science—the science of social adjustment or social organization—their entire and complete reconciliation or equilibrium. They are the centrifugal and centripetal forces Which, harmoniously combined, neither produce a stationary nor a jarring and conflicting result, but ultimate in rapid and graceful movement in the orbit of use.
It is the business of the New Church to accept and illustrate all the discoveries of science so soon as they are announced and become practicable, and so far as they are applicable to its wants. In respect to organization and Church Government the Church is a social body, demanding, like any national or other social organization, the knowledge and application of a true social science. From the freedom which has been secured in respect to church matters, through political agencies, in this country (America), every thing has been providentially anticipated: to enable the New Catholic Church, founded here, to precede social reconstruction in the political and other spheres, .and to give a brilliant example of the harmonious workings of government scientifically adjusted. It is another condition, however, equally essential, that the Head of the Church combine in himself personally the requisite Love, Wisdom, and Force, and especially that he does not misjudge in respect to the signs of the times, in determining that there is, at this day, a sufficient number of men and women truly regenerated or born into the higher life, the life of love to God or the Infinite and Universal, the love of humanity and devotion to its interests,—men and women who are prepared for and awaiting the advent of the Church of the Future,—to call for the organization of that Church. All this is equally requisite, for it is another principle of the same science that the element of Personality holds as important a place as the element of Principle, or truth; both as to the lead and the following, whether in ecclesiastical or any other form of government. “Principles without men” is a formula as false, when taken for the whole truth, as “men without principles.” Whosoever tenders himself, therefore, as the founder of a new Church must be conscious in himself of the requisite personal endowments and qualifications for so great and so holy an enterprise. By assuming that position, he invites the searching criticism of those who propose to unite with the Church, in regard to his motives, qualifications, and powers, in the same sense, inversely, that they, in tendering themselves as members of the body, invite the same criticism from him. That criticism mutually and satisfactorily completed, however, he is [7] entitled to expect of them an unswerving allegiance, in good faith, and a prompt and unquestioning obedience in all the matters implied in the existing relation between them, so long as the relation exists. The relation itself is defined by the end for which they are associated, and by the scientific conditions of success to that end. They have the same right to require of him the continued manifestation of the same motives and abilities, the same divine calling, in fine, for the high function he has assumed, for which they voluntarily accepted him as their guide.
The soldier requires implicit confidence in his general; the general in his soldier. Promptitudc and success demand that so long as they remain soldier and general, the designs of the latter shall not be trammeled by the hesitancy or partial revolt of the former. So much is due to the principle of Order and Efficiency. The principle of Freedom demands on the other hand that each retain always the power to sunder the tie that unites them, and that each frankly accept and truly guard the right of the other to revise his judgments of the pas; and to decide whether these essential requirements are met. At the same time, it is incumbent upon each to remember that the exercise of the right to dissolve bands so solemnly assumed, and assumed for so high and sacred a purpose, is itself a solemn and responsible act, in detriment to the Unity of the Church and revolutionary in kind, so that, to the religious mind, it can only be justified by the religious and profound conviction that the highest duty to that which the individual accepts as highest in the Universe, and the highest good of mankind or the Church Universal, will be promoted thereby.
Hitherto church government, like all government, has erred on the side of despotism or of chaotic and licentious freedom. Still, confessedly, despotism and unlimited freedom, have each their peculiar sides of advantage, as well as their peculiar evils. The wise are not frightened nor repelled by terms. They look deeper into the essence of things, and seek to extract from principles most opposite their elements of good, and so to combine. them as to neutralize the evil.
Democracy in America is rapidly running its race to terminate in anarchy. A scientific understanding of principles demonstrates that it must prove a failure, in an opposite direction, as disastrous and complete as the failure of monarchy in the old [8] world has been heretofore to secure “contented nationalities.” The slavery question is looming up into proportions that threaten disaster, and none can clearly foresee how soon it may plunge us in the horrors of civil war. The new Catholic Church must be organized and operating under principles and a leadership competent to grapple with this great social problem, to lift it above the plane of ordinary politics, and even above the blind impulses of conscience or philanthropy, and to settle it, as a final umpire, in accordance with all right, and to the complete satisfaction of all. It must be able to tender similar services to all other nationalities in respect to all the great social and ethical problems of life. The new Catholic Church is the first Church ever based, on the one hand, upon science, and accepting all the legitimate conclusions of the intellect—while it accepts and embodies, on the other, faith, hope, charity, aspiration, and love, culminating in religion. It is, therefore, the only Church ever competent to place itself rightly in this advisory relation to the state, to the family, and the individual. Its confessional will be broad enough to admit a nation, and small enough and humble enough to listen to the petty tribulations of a child.
In respect to the special officerıng and ordering of the temporalities and spiritualities of the Church, it, like all other churches, is divided into clerical and lay members. To the former class belong priests and priestesses, prophets and prophetesses, teachers of theological science within the Church, the chief or head of the Church, archbishops, bishops, deacons, and pastors, and all other ecclesiastical functionaries above a certain inferior grade. Both sexes are alike admitted to the exercise of their gifts, according as God has blessed them with faculties and with an interior and an exterior call to the work. The proper hierarchy of the Church consists of the head or chief, as central pivot of the organization, and of sub-pivots, in various grades, down to the simple pastor of a Church-congregation; all submitting in absolute obedience to the mandates of the chief; all retaining their freedom to dissolve their connection, and even to organize new churches upon principles or under an administration more consonant with their spiritual wants. The new Catholic Church becomes truly catholic or universal, in result, therefore, only when, by attraction, it succeeds in bringing and retaining all individualities within the pale of its own organization.
The ownership of Church property and the collection of Church revenues will be regulated upon the same general principles as the organization of the Church itself. The details of the plan of each will be articulated in special rescripts to be issued hereafter by the chief.
Particular Church-congregations will likewise be organized and their affairs administered, upon a plan which will be a miniature repetition of the organization and administration of the whole Church. The pastor of a Church-congregation will hold the same relation to his flock which the chief or head of the church holds, under God, to the Church Universal. Any person who feels an interior call to become a teacher and preacher of spiritual truths, feels himself laden with spiritual gifts which he is anxious to impart, and is conscious of being endowed with the power to organize and guide a congregation of worshiping souls, who may desire to learn, receive, and mutually impart of spiritual things, is entitled to assert his function as a pastor and to gather a flock; or, in other words, to enter upon the ministry and found a Church-congregation. They who acknowledge him as their religious leader or head, have the same right to become members. Their voluntary acceptance of him in that capacity constitutes his external call to the ministry in response to the internal call. In some instances the external call may precede the internal, which happens when a congregat feel the fitness of an individual for the office of pastor and invite him to assume the office, in anticipation of his own inward suggestions of fitness The concurrence of the interior and exterior call constitutes the mutual recognition of the tie between pastor and congregation, and is the sufficient warrant of either party in the premises.
Still, a Church-congregation so formed is as yet merely an individual or independent congregation. It has not become a member of the larger body, the catholic or universal organization, which if it be rightly constituted and administered may be appropriately denominated the Established Church, or the Church Establishment The higher privileges of a recognized communion with the whole body of religious worshipers on the planet, is reserved for those congregations and pastors who unite themselves with that body This union can take place by application from the pastor to any proper official of the Established Church under whose ecclesiastical authority he consents to come, and who consents in turn to receive him.
The application for such membership of the larger body is the act of the pastor alone; but inasmuch as the lay-members can only be brought with him under the new order by their own free consent, it becomes their act as truly as his, if they follow his guidance in the matter
Within the New Catholic Church, the authority of the pastor of a Church-congregation is, in the first instance, absolute, both as respects the spiritualities and temporalities of the body under his care; and he is in turn under the same absolute authority of his superior, and so on up to the head of the Church. Whatsoever moneys or property are surrendered to the Church, must therefore be surrendered with a full knowledge that it is an absolute abandonment of all right of property or control over them.
The order of the Church is, so far, hierarchical and despotic, but the abuse of power in the Church is immediately and effectually checked by the reserved and conceded right of every member to withdraw from the connection, in testimony of his disapprobation of the administration of the pastor, or simply as a measure of self-protection, and without incurring any odium or censure for the mere act of withdrawal. The pastor can in the same manner dissolve at any time the connection of his interior Church-congregation with any member whose peculiar individualities or views, however conscientiously these latter may be entertained, are found practically to disturb the harmony of that body. This is excommunication, but excommunication not necessarily implying blame, not even deciding that the exscinded member may not have been more truly right in his position than the Church, represented in its pastor. Any clerical superior may in the same manner exscind his clerical subordinate, or the subordinate withdraw, without blame; so that a pastor may even lose his own standing in the Church by excommunicating a member unwisely, in the judgment of his superior. Excommunication coupled with censure always in the hope of its proving merely a suspension, or other penances, as instruments of discipline or recovery for those who in the view of the Church may be guilty of scandalous or immoral conduct,—all measures of force, in fine, which the loving parent might use in extremity in respect to a child, are held to be within the competency of the Church for those who remain loyal to her authority; but the occasion for the exercise of such powers must shrink to the narrowest limits in a Church based wholly on attraction, tolerating a freedom of opinion and deportment limited only by encroachment, and constantly guarding the freedom of the individual to withdraw from her authority. None need, therefore, to fear her inflections, since to none can they come, except to such as voluntary accept them as a means of grace.
ARTICLE VII.
FAITH AND PRACTICE.
The unity of the Faith of the Church is not to be found in the truths apprehended and accepted by any single or individual mind, but in all the truths apprehended and accepted by all minds: Hence the Creeds of the Church are not one, but many; different and even opposite Faiths combining, balancing, and harmonizing with each other in the bosom of the greater truth—Infinite Variety in Unity. As in the constituency of the Church, so in its Faith, all truths derived from all sources—or the Universe of Truth, Observational, Scientific, Intuitional, and Inspirational—constitute the Universal Creed of the Church—a creed which is therefore progressively developing in Time; but, in a special or interior sense, the Creed of the Church is the aggregate of the Truth, known or believed, in relation to the highest sphere of thought and feeling, and in relation to the out working of the Divine Love and Wisdom in beneficent action.
Every pastor of a Church-congregation will rally his flock under that creed which will best express the aggregate unity of his and their sentiments or religious beliefs; or under no written or formally constituted creed, if that method is more highly approved—the real religious unity consisting of Love, and of that knowledge of principles which not merely tolerates but accepts and approves of diversity of opinion ns necessary and beautiful; resulting from diversity of organization and development.
The practice of the Church is equally diversified, consisting, in worship, of the aggregate of all modes of expressing the religious sentiments, the Church striving continually to displace lower forms, by the elevation of the people to the appreciation and acceptance of superior nodes; and consisting, in Charity, of the aggregate of all modes of dispensing spiritual and material benefactions, reserving the same tendency to the adoption of superior methods. The Church, in fine, accepts all men where they stand, and seeks to raise them to more spiritual conditions.
Every church organization, acting through its pastor and organized with or without a written creed, will adjoin itself to that branch of the Church Universal, corresponding with a particular Order in the old Catholic Church, with a particular Sect in Protestant Christendom, or a particular Religion over the face of the earth—to which it may be most strongly attracted by a proximate identity of Faith and Practice. Hence, in the New Catholic Church there will continue to exist an infinitude of Orders or Sects, or Religions, sympathetically and co-operatively united, and concurring in the great work of human elevation. The aggregate of all these will constitute the Interior body of the Church Universal. All will give and receive life, mutually, like the parts of the human body, but in a special sense from the Head or center of the Church, which will be more particularly in communication with all the parts, and which should be a fountain of the highest influences.
The first Church-congregation of the New Catholic Church, organized in the city of New York, will assume to be, provisionally, the Metropolitan Church of the New Organization, for the world, and the first pastor of that congregation to be its head or Chief.
In the midst of the recognition and defense of the greatest liberty, the centralizing tendency of Religion is well understood. It is expected, therefore, and desired even, that this tendency shall express itself in a leaning towards conformity in the Creeds of subordinate Church congregations to the Creed of the Metropolitan Church, so far as they are able in good conscience and with hearty approbation to accept any of its articles; but in no degree beyond that. As an expression of their own faith, and as a model for other congregations, in so far as they shall be able to accept it, the Creed of the Metropolitan Church has been articulated and adopted. It should therefore accompany this provisional basis as an addendum, and its principles be studied by all who desire to appreciate the full significance of the New Catholic Church.
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