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Developed by St. Robert Bellarmine,1542-1621, Doctor
of the Church and Cardinal...
1. The Church's Name, Catholic,
universal, and world wide, and not confined to any particular nation
or people.
2. Antiquity, in tracing her ancestry
directly to Jesus Christ.
3. Constant Duration, in lasting
substantially unchanged for so many centuries.
4. Extensiveness, in the
number of her loyal members.
5. Episcopal Succession, of her
Bishops from the first Apostles at the Last Supper to the present
hierarchy.
6. Doctrinal Agreement, of her
doctrine with the teaching of the ancient Church.
7. Union, of her members among
themselves, and with their visible head, the Roman Pontiff.
8. Holiness, of doctrine in reflecting
the sanctity of GOD.
9. Efficacy, of doctrine in its
power to sanctify believers, and inspire them to great moral achievement.
10. Holiness of Life, of the Church's
representative writers and defenders.
11. The glory of Miracles, worked in
the Church and under the Church's auspices.
12. The gift of Prophesy found among
the Church's saints and spokesmen.
13. The Opposition that the Church arouses
among those who attack her on the very grounds that Christ was opposed
by His enemies.
14. The Unhappy End, of those who fight
against her.
15. The Temporal Peace and Earthly
Happiness of those who live by the Church's teaching and
defend her interests.
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