Rev. Muller: Proofs that There Is No Salvation out of the Catholic Church for Those Who Die Without Being United to Her

Rev. Muller continues his exposition in Chapter V of The Catholic Dogma:

Christ has solemnly declared that only those will be saved, who have done God's will on earth, as explained, not by private interpretation, but by the infallible teaching of the Roman Catholic Church.

"Not every one," says Christ, "who saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven; but he that doth the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. vii. 21.)

The will of the heavenly Father is that all men hear and believe his Son, Jesus Christ.

"This is my well beloved Son. Him you shall hear."

Now, Jesus Christ said to his Apostles and to all their lawful successors:

"He that heareth you heareth me, and he that despiseth you despiseth me, and he that despiseth me, despiseth him, the heavenly Father, that sent me."

Now all those who do not listen to Jesus Christ speaking to them through St. Peter and the Apostles, in their lawful successors, despise God the Father; they do not do his will, and therefore heaven will never be theirs.

What non-Catholic engages a servant who tells him:

"I will serve you on condition that you give me three hundred dollars a month and let me serve you according to my will, not according to yours"?

How, then, could God the Father admit one into his Kingdom, who has always refused to do his will, - who, instead of learning to do the will of God, the full doctrine of Christ, through the Catholic Church, was himself his own teacher, his own lawgiver, his own judge, in all religious matters!

"Go and teach all nations: teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. He that believeth not all these things shall be condemned."

Our divine Saviour says:

"No one can come to the Father, except through me."

If we then wish to enter heaven, we must be united to Christ--to his body, which is the Church, as St. Paul says. Therefore, out of the Church there is no salvation.

Again Jesus Christ says:

"Whoever will not hear the Church, look upon him as a heathen and a publican," a great sinner. Therefore, out of the Church there is no salvation.

Holy Scripture says:

"The Lord added daily to the Church such as should be saved." (Acts, ii. 47.)

Therefore the Apostles believed and the holy Scriptures teach that there is no salvation out of the Church.

Hence the Fathers of the Church never hesitated to pronounce all those forever lost who die out of the Roman Catholic Church: "He who has not the Church for his mother," says St. Cyprian, "cannot have God for his Father;" and with him the Fathers in general say that, "as all who were not in the ark of Noe perished in the waters of the Deluge, so shall all perish who are out of the true Church."

St. Augustine and the other bishops of Africa, at the Council of Zirta, A. D. 410, say:

"Whosoever is separated from the Catholic Church, however commendable in his own opinion his life may be, he shall, for the very reason that he is separated from the union of Christ, not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him."

Therefore, says St. Augustine, "a Christian ought to fear nothing so much as to be separated from the body of Christ (the Church). For, if he be separated from the body of Christ, he is not a member of Christ; if not a member of Christ, he is not quickened by his Spirit." (Tract. xxvii. in Joan., n. 6, col. 1992, tom. iii.)

"In our times," says Pius IX., "many of the enemies of the Catholic faith direct their efforts toward placing every monstrous opinion on the same level with the doctrine of Christ, or confounding it therewith; and so they try more and more to propagate that impious system of the indifference of religions. But quite of late, we shudder to say it, certain men have not hesitated to slander us by saying that we share in their folly, favor that most wicked system, and think so benevolently of every class of mankind, as to suppose that not only the sons of the Church, but that the rest also, however alienated from Catholic unity they may remain, are alike in the way of salvation, and may arrive at everlasting life. We are at a loss, from horror, to find words to express our detestation of this new and atrocious injustice that is done to us." (Allocution to the Cardinals, held on Dec. 17, 1847.)

We may also add here that Pope Leo XIII., in his Encyclical Letter to the Archbishops and Bishops of Bavaria, teaches, as Pastor of the Universal Church, that "submission to the Pope is necessary to salvation."

"How grateful then," says St. Alphonsus, "ought we to be to God for the gift of the true faith. How great is not the number of infidels, heretics, and schismatics. The world is full of them, and, if they die out of the Church, they will all be condemned, except infants who die after baptism." (Catech. first command. No. 10 and 19.) Because, as St.Augustine says, where there is no divine faith, there can be no divine charity, and where there is no divine charity, there can be no justifying or sanctifying grace, and to die without being in sanctifying grace, is to be lost forever. ( Lib. I. Serm. Dom. in monte, cap. V.)

This faith, as we have already seen, the Church teaches very plainly in the profession of faith which she requires converts to make before they are received into the Church; the very first article reads as follows:

"I, N. N., having before my eyes the holy Gospel which I touch with my hand, and knowing that no one can be saved without that faith which the holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church holds, believes and teaches, against which I grieve that I have greatly erred," etc.

So it is evident that there is no salvation out of the Church.