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THE PROTESTANT RULE OF FAITH
AN IMPOSSIBLE ONE
By the Right Rev. BISHOP VAUGHAN 1
“In order to know the religion of Protestants,” says Chilling
worth, “neither the doctrine of Luther, nor that of Calvin or
Melancthon is to be taken, nor the Confession of Augsburg or
Geneva, nor the Catechism of Heidelberg, nor the Articles of the
Anglican Church, nor even the harmony of all the Protestant
confessions, but that which they all subscribe to, as the perfect
rule of their faith and actions, that is to say, the Bible. Yes, the
Bible, the Bible alone is the Religion of Protestants.”—
Vide the Religion of Protestants, a sure Road to Salvation, by
Dr. Chillingworth (ch. vi. 56).
If we turn to Whitaker's Almanack for 1900 we shall
find that he enumerates two hundred and seventyfour “ Religious Denominations ” in England alone.
Our leading Protestant journal goes so far as to say
that “ England alone is reputed to contain some
seven hundred sects, each of whom proves a whole
system of theology and morals from the Bible.”2 In
the United States of America there is said to be
almost an equal number, so that we can hardly be
accused of exaggeration if we say that, throughout
the English-speaking world, there are many hundred
distinct bodies of Christians.
Here we seem, at first sight, to be confronted with
a veritable sea of confusion, and to be listening to a
perfect babel of conflicting tongues. There seems no
way of classifying these hundreds of different churches.
They refuse to group themselves in any regular order.
Each is a law to itself. The outlines of each are so
indistinct, and so vague and ill-defined, that they seem
1 Reprinted by permission from Thoughts for all Times, and
revised by the author.
2 Vide The Times, 13th Jan. 1884—leading article.
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The Protestant Rule of Faith
to blend almost imperceptibly into one another like
the floating clouds in a storm-swept sky. Looking,
however, somewhat closer, we find that there is just
one among these Christian Churches which is funda
mentally different from all the rest. Different, in the
first place, in the number of its adherents. Not merely
in the sense of being larger and more extended and
more universally diffused than any other, which would
not be very remarkable, but in the sense of being so im
measurably greater as to exceed numerically, not only
any single Christian Church taken alone, but all other
Christian Churches put together. So that, if we
divide all Christian Churches into two parts, placing
the Roman Catholic Church upon one side, and all
other forms of Christianity on the other, we shall
find a larger number gathered together under the
banner of the Catholic Church than under the host of
distinct banners held aloft by all the varieties of con
flicting sects.1 That is perhaps the most obvious dis
tinction, lying, as it were, on the surface, and the first
to attract the notice of the casual observer.
But there is another and far more important distinc
tion, which takes us at once to the root of the matter,
and that consists in the difference of the rule of faith.
1 Note.—In the Ecclesiastical Dictionary, published this
year, 1900 (Benziger Bros.), there are said to be 270,000,000
Catholics, and but a total of 89,000,000 Protestants of all kinds.
On the other hand, the well-known statistician, Mr Mulhall, pre
pared for the Australian Catholic Congress a notable paper on
the Christian population of the world, which, according to his
figures, numbers at the present moment 501,600,000, and consists
of 240,000,000 Catholics, 163,300,000 Protestants, and 98,300,000
Greek Christians. Under the head of Protestants are included
more than one hundred different sects, who differ so widely from
°ne another that some—those, for instance, who deny the Divinity
,.
the mystery of the Holy Trinity—can hardly be
called Christians. Assuming all classes of Protestants to form
one religion, their total number in relation to that of Catholics
would be as two to three.
�The Protestant Rule of Faith
3
The hundreds of different Christian denominations
may, and do, differ to an extraordinary extent among
themselves. They vary in innumerable unimportant,
and in a considerable number of important points,
both of doctrine and of discipline. Yet, however
widely they may differ upon other points, they all, or
almost all, are agreed as to their rule of faith. They
all accept Reason and the Scriptures; or, if you will,
the Scriptures, interpreted by reason, as the source
and very foundation of their respective creeds. They
one and all point to the Holy Scriptures as to the
infallible and unerring word of God. They ac
cept no other infallible or unerring authority upon
earth. The Bible is the Divine Book, and contains all
that is necessary to salvation; and there is no other
Divine authority, no other infallible guide or teacher
to whom men can have access. Though each denom
ination is distinct, and unlike every other, yet one and
all found their creed on this only infallible teacher,
viz., the Bible. “ Holy Scripture cohtaineth all things
necessary to salvation ”; and “ Whatever is not read
therein, nor maybeproved thereby,is not to be required
of any man,” etc. So runs Article VJ. of the Church
of England.1 “ Protestants assert that the Old and
New Testaments are the only safe source of religious
knowledge and form the sole rule offaith”2 Rev. W.
Lee writes:—“ As Evangelical Protestants, we claim
that the Bible, and the Bible alone, is the rule of our
faith and practice.”3
It is only when we turn to the gigantic Catholic
Church, which stretches out her arms over the entire
earth, that we discover a totally different rule of
1 Vide Thirty-nine Articles.
s Vide History of Civilization in Scotland, by Jn. Mackintosh,
vol. ii. p. 35.
3 Vide What is a Protestant? p. 9.
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The Protestant Rule of Faith
faith. The Catholic Church accepts reason, just as
the Protestant Church does. It is in her eyes a gift
of God, to be exercised and employed to the utmost ;
she also accepts the Holy Scriptures as the inspired
word of God, and as containing a Divine revelation.
She even pays them more honour and more respect,
and treats them with even greater reverence than any
of those Churches that profess to found their creed
on them alone. To this extent, therefore, she and
all other Christian bodies are at one. But here she
parts company with them. She does not believe
that God has abandoned this inspired Book to the
mercy of fallible men to be turned and twisted into
a thousand conflicting meanings, to be made to
support doctrines and practices not only different,
but opposite ; and to be a basis upon which hundreds
of distinct and irreconcilable sects may take their
stand. She believes that God confided this inspired
volume to the guardianship of a living and infallible
Church. That this Church is the only authorized
interpreter and explainer of its pages. That no
passage can really bear two or more contradictory
senses; and that where such contradictory interpreta
tions are set forth, it rests with her, and with her
alone, to decide absolutely, definitely, and with un
wavering certainty which is, and which is not, the
true interpretation ; and so to secure unity, or truth,
which is the same thing; for where there is truth,
there unity also must always be found.
There are, in fact, but two systems of Christianity
possible—the one based on private judgement, and the
other on authority. The system of private judgement
is by far the more flattering to human pride, and that
is why it has commended itself to so many haughty
and rebellious spirits. It makes each man, not a
�The Protestant Rule of Faith
5
disciple, but a master; not a learner, but a teacher;
not a pupil, but a critic. But, as a consequence, it
renders all real unity, not only difficult, but practically
impossible. Now, unless we are out and out rationalists,
and deny that infallibility exists anywhere, which
would be to destroy supernatural religion altogether,
I take it as evident that but two courses are open to
us: either we must accept the Bible as the only in
fallible teacher, or we must accept the magisterium of
the living and articulate Church as equally infallible.
If the infallible Bible alone will not suffice—if it is
found incapable of securing the unity for which Christ
prayed—we are forced and driven to acknowledge an
infallible Church. Now, our reasons for not accepting
the “ Bible and the Bible only ” theory are manifold.
In the space at my disposal I can suggest only a few
of the more important:—
I: Christ, when founding His kingdom on earth,
never wrote as much as a single line of any kind,
which seems strange, on the hypothesis that He
intended each man’s religion to depend upon his
personal interpretation of certain documents.
II. Though He commanded His disciples to “Go
and teach all nations,” to “preach to every living
creature,” etc., He never once commanded any one of
them to commit a word to paper or parchment.
III. Even the very expressions He made use of
seem to emphasize this fact; for He does not say:
“If any man will not read the Scriptures? but, “If
any man will not hear the Church, let him be to thee
as a heathen and a publican ” ; not “ He that follows
the Scriptures as his guide, follows Me,” but rather,
“ He that heareth you, heareth Me.” And, again,
“ Faith cometh {not by reading, but) by hearing"'; and
so on, in many other passages.
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The Protestant Rule of Faith
IV. Because (<?) very few of the Apostles wrote at
all. Out of the “ twelve,” only five wrote any portion
of the Bible, viz., St. Matthew, St. John, St. Peter, St.
Jude, and St. James j1 and (p) because those who did
put pen to paper were urged to do so from special
circumstances, as when absent, or in prison, and from
accidental motives ; but (f) even then, they did not
address their writings to the whole Church, but to some
one or another section specially needing them, or to
some local church, and occasionally even to single
individuals, as is the case in the Epistles to Titus, to
Timothy, and to Philemon, etc.
V. Because the very form and construction of the
Scriptures seem to show that the Bible was never
intended to be a text-book of doctrine, or a summary
of belief. There is no clear or methodical statement
of the teaching of Christ, proceeding in regular
sequence, but exhortations, narratives, and incidents,
etc., are all intermingled.
VI. Because the entire Bible was not even com
posed until whole generations of Christians had passed
away. The Gospel and Apocalypse of St. John, for
example, had no existence for more than sixty years
after our Lord’s ascension.
VII. Because even after the various books of
Scripture had been composed, they were not at once
gathered together into one volume. Some were to be
found in one place, some in another, and it was not
until hundreds of years had rolled slowly by that the
various inspired writings were collected and placed
under the same cover ; so that during many generations
scarcely any one could have even seen the complete
collection, unless indeed he were a great traveller.
VIII. Because even when at last the whole of the
St. Paul was, of course, not one of “ the twelve ” Apostles.
�The Protestant Rule of Faith
7
inspired writings had been collected into one volume,
not one person in a thousand could have obtained
possession of them. There was no printing; and
even paper had not yet been invented, so that the
only possible means of securing a copy of this volume
(in which each man is supposed to find his religion)
was to get it written out by hand, letter by letter,
and word by word : a process which would, according
to some authorities, take a scribe five years to accom
plish. Nor was this all: the copy had to be written,,
not on paper, which had not then come into use,
but on vellum or parchment. As a consequence, the
price was enormous and prohibitive. No one but a
rich man could afford to purchase such a thing. So
that for fourteen hundred years the system of “ the
Bible and the Bible only/’ interpreted by each indi
vidual, was clearly an impossible one, and, if impossible,
then to be rejected by every reasonable and reflecting
man. The well-known historian, Mr. W. E. H. Lecky,
is no Catholic, yet he observes: “ Protestantism
could not possibly have existed without a general diffu
sion of the Bible, and that diffusion was impossible
until after the two inventions of paper and printing.”1
Clearly a religion dependent for its very existence upon
such human inventions, unknown during fourteen cen
turies of Christianity, cannot be the religion of Christ.
IX. There was not only the initial difficulty of
procuring a copy of the Scriptures, there was the yet
further difficulty of reading them. The Protestant
historian, Macaulay, tells us that: “ There was then
throughout the greater part of Europe very little
knowledge, and that little was confined to the clergy.
Not one man in five hundred,” he says, “could have
spelled his way through a single psalm ; books were
1 Rationalism in Europe, vol. ii. p. 209.
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The Protestant Rule of Faith
few and costly: the art of printing was unknown,”
“ Probably,” writes Abbd Begin, a professor of the
University of Laval, “ there is no exaggeration in say
ing that nine-tenths of the population were not in a
position to read the manuscript of the Bible. Accord
ing to the Protestant system we should have to conclude,
therefore, that these poor unfortunate beings had no
rule of faith, and were out of the path of salvation.”
X. Because, whereas we know, on the one hand,
that Christ desired and prayed for unity of faith and
‘doctrine among His disciples, we know, on the other
hand, that the “ Bible only ” system has been, and is,
the direct cause of interminable divisions and innumer
able dissensions. In the words of the historian Lecky:1
“ It has been most abundantly proved that from
Scripture honest and able men have derived and do
derive arguments in support of the most opposite
opinions.”2 And if this be true in the case of “ honest
and able men, what will be the result in the case of
the less honest and the less able ? In our eyes such a
system stands self-condemned.
The above facts present themselves as insuperable
difficulties against the Protestant rule of faith. But
there remain others far greater still. There are three
fundamental tenets which are absolutely essential to
the Protestant theory, but which on strict Protestant
principles we hold to be absolutely unproved and unprovable. Let me exemplify them in this way: A
Protestant comes up to me, holding the Bible in his
hand. He says : “ This is the word of God ; this the
foundation of my faith. I don’t want any infallible
n J .On2nd November-1895, Mr. Lecky wrote : “I was brought
fP
e
of England, and have never severed myself
from it — Fzz& St. James s Gazette, 14th November 189 c.
Rationalism in Europe, vol. ii. p. 174.
�The Protestant Rule of Faith
9
Church to teach me. All I need lies here, within the
cover of this book.” Thus Dean Farrar is reported to
have said: “We take our stand on the open Bible,
and declare it to be the very charter of our existence.”
What would we naturally reply? We would say:
“ Not so fast, my friend. Are you quite sure that you
hold in your hand the true Bible, the whole Bible, and
nothing but the Bible ? ”
I. Take the most important part of it, viz., the New
Testament. Consider its history. It was written by
different men, at different times, in different places,
and under different circumstances. The different
Gospels and Epistles composing it were floating about
in different parts of the Church, together with dozens
and scores of other Epistles and Gospels,1 and it was
not till the fourth century that the Catholic Church,
after carefully examining them one by one, said :
“ This is Scripture ”; “ that is not Scripture ” : “ this
we enrol in the canon ”; “ that we reject.” For
example, there is said to be a Gospel which has been
attributed to one of the twelve Apostles, viz., to St.
Bartholomew.2 The Catholic Church said : We reject
that, even though the writer was an Apostle; on the
other hand, there was a Gospel written by St. Luke,
who was not an Apostle, and the Church said: We
accept that even though the writer was not an
Apostle.
In this way the present Bible came into existence.
Now, either the Church which made the selection is
1 Note, for instance, the Protevangelion, the Gospel according
to St. Thomas, the Gospel of Nicodemus, the Acts of Paul and
Thecla, the Epistles of St. Clement, of St. Barnabas, the Books
of Hermas, the Acts of St. Andrew, and a great many others,
which the Church has refused to insert in the Canon of Scripture
2 The Gospel according to St. Bartholomew is mentioned by
St. Jerome.
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The Protestant Rule of Faith
infallible, or she is not infallible. If you admit her to
be infallible, then you are bound to listen to her, and
to obey her, and you must become a member of the
Catholic Church, which is the only Church which has
ever even so much as put forward the claim; but if
you say she is fallible, then you acknowledge that she
may err; and if she may err, then she may have erred
in her selection of the books of Scripture, and you
have no certainty that you possess the Holy Bible at
all! Some of the books you include may be mere
human documents—as, on the other hand, some of
the really inspired books may have been omitted.
Different Protestant denominations have different
Bibles.
Luther rejected from the Canon of the Scriptures
Job, Ecclesiastes, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the
Second Epistle of St. Peter, and the Second and
Third of St. John, that of St. Jude, and the Apocalypse
(or Revelations). Calvin rejected Esther, Tobias,
Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus and Maccabees.
Spinoza doubts the authenticity of the Pentateuch,
Judges, Kings, etc.; Strauss, the Gospel of St.
Matthew; Griesbach, the Gospel of St. Mark. Who
will decide between these, and countless others, if
there be no infallible court of appeal, no unerring
voice to pronounce sentence? No! If there be no
infallible Church to settle such questions, no one can
declare with any certainty that he possesses the Scrip
tures at all. Even were one satisfied with human
testimony, it would not help one, since human testi
mony itself is not agreed on the point.
II. A second difficulty arises concerning the ques
tion of inspiration. What proof can any one bring
forward that the Bible (granted that we have the
Bible) contains the whole inspired word of God, and
�The Protestant Rule of Faith
II
nothing but the inspired word of God ? Inspiration
is not a thing that can be proved by mere history or
intrinsic evidence. Whether the Holy Ghost Him
self has guided and guarded a writer and protected
him from all error, etc., can be known only by an
appeal to authority. It does not admit of ordinary
direct proof, or of ocular demonstration. So that,
unless the authority appealed to be an infallible one,
a man cannot be absolutely sure that the Scriptures
are inspired. No such authority can be found outside
the Catholic Church. There is not even agreement
among the various Protestant denominations upon
this most important, and in their case, positively
essential, point.
III. But the third difficulty is the most insuperable
of all, and that is the difficulty of correct interpreta
tion. The Bible, however holy a book, and however
certainly inspired, is not merely useless, but worse
than useless to one who draws from it doctrines and
principles which are contrary to its real teaching.
Yet this is inevitable, unless there be a Divinely
assisted, and consequently an infallible interpreter.
Some would persuade us that the Bible is an easy
and simple book to understand ; so easy, in fact, that
“he who runs may read.” Nothing could be further
from the truth. This may be proved from the Scrip
tures themselves. Thus the Eunuch of the Queen of
Ethiopia, who was studying the writings of the
prophet Isaias as he journeyed home, admitted to the
Deacon Philip that he could not understand the sense
of what he read, unless some one explained it to him.
After reading out some prophetic utterances, he
turned to Philip and said : “ I beseech thee, of whom
doth the prophet speak this ? of himself, or of some
other man?” (see Acts viii. 27-35). The Eunuch
».
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himself was unable to decide, so he appealed to a
higher authority.
In the twenty-fourth chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel
(verse 25 et seqi} we have another illustration of the
difficulty of correctly interpreting the inspired text.
Our Lord is obliged to interpret, to His own disciples
on their way to Emmaus, “ the things concerning him
self, beginning from Moses and from all the prophets.”
He told them that they had not understood, and
therefore He “opened to them the Scriptures”—
8irip/j.r]vevev avTois ev 7racrai$ Tais ypatpais rd irepi eavTou
(verse 27). St. Peter, inspired by the Holy Ghost, re
veals to us still more clearly that there are “ certain
things hard to be understood, which the unlearned
and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scrip
tures (J)? Kai ras Xoi7ras ypa<j>a$:'), to their own destruc
tion” (2 Peter iii. 16).
The truth of this contention is fully borne out by
the experience of past and present ages. One person
reads the Divine oracles in one way, and another in
another, so that from one and the same infallible
source are derived totally distinct and opposite
doctrines. The followers of Novatian take one view
and the followers of Sabellius another; while Donatists, Arians, Pelagians, and Nestorians all differ
among themselves. Truly does Erasmus remark that
“the interpretation of the Scriptures by individual
minds has never ended in anything but laming texts,
which walked perfectly straight before ”; while St.
Augustine, as early as the fifth century, declared : “ non
aliunde natae sunt haereses, nisi dum Scripturae bonae
intelliguntur non bene.” Butler reminds us how
Religion spawn’d a various rout
Of petulant capricious sects,
The maggots of corrupted texts.
�The Protestant Rule of Faith
13
Some Protestants to whom the objection has been
put have attempted to meet it by saying : “ The diffi
culties pointed out may have some existence in the
case of careless and worldly-minded men, but if a
devout Christian takes up the Bible with reverence,
places himself in the presence of God, and earnestly
prays for the assistance and light of the Holy Spirit,
he will be sure to arrive at its correct and true mean
ing, so that he has nothing to fear.” Well! We
English are considered a practical people. We like
to test the theory for ourselves; for to use a homely
phrase, “the proof of the pudding is in the eating.”
Then let us, for the moment, accept the theory, just
to see how' it works. Take three honourable, good,
and learned men ; ?>., (1) the Anglican Bishop of
Lincoln, Dr. King ; (2) the Anglican Bishop of Liver
pool, the late Dr. Ryle; and (3) the late Rev Dr.
Martineau, a representative of Unitarianism. Each
believes in the Bible. Each, no doubt, approaches
the study of it in becoming dispositions. Each craves
God’s grace, and light, and assistance. Yet each
rises from his knees holding a totally different and
wholly irreconcilable doctrine.
The Protestant
Bishop of Lincoln finds authority in Scripture for a
sacrificing priesthood, for priestly, absolution, and for
the real presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.
The late Protestant Bishop of Liverpool, on the other
hand, can discover nothing of the kind. On the con
trary, he finds that any clergyman who attempts or
pretends to forgive sins is usurping the authority of
Christ; further, he fails to discover any reason for
believing that Christ is truly present under the sacra
mental species. “ This is My Body ” means one
thing to the Protestant Bishop of Lincoln, and quite
another to the late Protestant Bishop of Liverpool.
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Still both are able to find in the Bible the Divinity of
Christ. But a Unitarian, as clever and as sincere as
any Anglican prelate, takes up the inspired writings,
and he can find no proof within its pages even that
Christ is God ! He prays, and studies, and reads the
Bible, and then comes to the conclusion that Christ is
not God at all. You urge that the Scripture speaks
of Christ as “ God,” and as the “ Son of God.” He
will reply: “ Yes, but may not such words be applied
to a mere man? Does not the psalmist say, ‘Ye are
all gods, and sons of the Most High ’ ” ? If you return
to the charge and point out that Christ’s Divinity is
clearly contained in His own declaration, “ I and the
Father are one,” he will again retort: “Not at all;
that is merely a union of heart and will such as
exists, or may exist, among men. Nay, this is [he
will urge] evidently from Christ’s prayer—‘ Father, that
they may be one, even as I and Thou art one! ” This is
a fair specimen of the absurd and senseless position to
which the private interpretation of the Bible inevitably
leads. Here are three well-known, highly-respected,
learned and scholarly men each discovering a totally
different doctrine in the self-same words.
Is the Holy Ghost directing them all? Is the
Changeless, Eternal, and Uncreated Truth whispering
“ yes ” in the ears of one, and “ no ” into the ears of
another ; and declaring that a thing is false and true,
black and white, at one and the same time? To
say so would be blasphemous. If, instead of three
highly-educated and distinguished men of recognized
ability, we take the millions of educated and unedu
cated, learned and unlearned, young and old, rich and
poor, the effect of such a system becomes still more
apparent, and its consequences still more hopelessly
absurd and appalling.
�The Protestant Rule of Faith
i5
To sum up: I. We believe that the Incarnate Son
of God came upon earth to teach the truth. This,
indeed, is stated in the most emphatic way by Christ
Himself in the Hall of Pilate, viz.: “ For this was I
born, and for this came I into the world; that I
should give testimony to the truth” (John xviii. 37).
We believe with St. Paul that “the Church is the
pillar and ground of truth”;, that the Holy Spirit is
to “ remain with her for ever to teach her all truth ” ;
and that “the gates of hell (?>., of error) shall not
prevail.”
2. We believe truth to be one, and that it cannot
be anything but one, and in harmony with itself. We
hold that two Churches, teaching contradictory doc
trines, may both possibly be false, but by no possibility
can both be true. That they may both be true we
regard as a metaphysical impossibility, a self-evident
absurdity. But if instead of two, there be five or six
hundred claiming to be true Churches of Christ, the
absurdity of the situation becomes more glaring and
monstrous.
3. That there can be but one true Church follows,
not merely from the intrinsic nature of truth itself,
but also from the repeated and express declaration of
the Divine Founder of Christianity, e.g., “ There shall
be one fold or flock, and one Shepherd ” (John x. 16).
“ Be ye all one Body and one spirit, as you are called
in one hope of your calling. One Lord, onefaith, one
baptism ” (Eph. iv. 4, 5). A body is but one organized
whole; but:—“You are the body of Christ, and
members one of another,” and so forth. Further, the
very comparisons our Lord makes use of express the
same truth. He likens His Church to (a) a Kingdom,
(£) a City, (f) a House, (f) a Family, (f) a Fold or
Flock, (/) a Tree, (^) a Body, etc. All these figures
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The Protestant Rule of Fazth
imply a most essential unity, together with diversity.
What is more various than the different parts of a
living body? Yet what is more essentially one, and
in harmony with itself?
4. If unity be essential and vitally important, what
constitutes the bond of unity ? “ The Bible,” cry out
the Protestant Churches. “ The living and imperish
able voice of the Divinely assisted, and {because
Divinely assisted) infallible Church,” exclaim Catholics.
The one system maintains true unity in a community
of between two hundred and fifty and three hundred
millions, consisting of men of every race and nation,
and character and disposition, and language under
heaven. The other system cannot secure unity, even
within a national Church, among men of the same
race and country, and of the same general character
and antecedents—nay, cannot secure unity upon the
most vital points of Christian doctrine either among
the people, or the clergy, or even among the bishops
themselves.
Private judgement in religious matters is not
merely contrary to the whole idea of a teaching
Church; but it is by its very nature a strong solvent
of all true unity. Even such a pronounced Protestant
historian as Lord Macaulay could not fail to see that,
and to confess it. “ Our way of ascertaining the
tendency of free enquiry is simply to open our eyes
and look at the world in which we live: and there we
see that free enquiry on mathematical subjects pro
duces unity, and that free enquiry on moral subjects
produces discrepancy.” — Macaulay’s Gladstone on
Church and State.
There is no logical resting-place between Catholi
cism and Rationalism.
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THE CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY,
69 SOUTHWARK BRIDGE ROAD, LONDON, S.E.
�
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The protestant rule of faith an impossible one
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: "Reprinted by permission from Thoughts for all Times, and revised by the author." Includes bibliographical references. Date of publication from KVK (OCLC) WorldCat.
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Vaughan, John Stephen
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[1901]
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Protestantism
Catholic Church
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RA1538
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Catholic Church-Apologetic Works
Protestantism-Controversial Literature
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Text
FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT
BY MONSIGNOR W. CROKE ROBINSON, M.A.1
It is difficult to know where to start in a subject so large
and profound as the change of one’s faith, and the
process by which that change came about. I will
endeavour to trace the beginnings from which were
evolved eventually five conclusions which led me to the
Catholic Church.
I must premise that I was brought up as a Low
Church Anglican, but that a very little serious thought
brought me to what is known as Tractarianism, as dis
tinguished from Evangelicanism on the one side and
Ritualism on the other, with neither of which I had any
sympathy. I thought the one narrow - minded and
illogical, and the other illogical and dishonest; and I
think so now. I very soon began to be disturbed and
unsettled by the confusion worse confounded of Angli
canism. I asked myself, “Can Almighty God be the
author of this confusion ?
Can our Divine Saviour’s
promise be fulfilled ‘ that the gates of hell shall not pre1 Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from Roads to
Rome (Longmans).
�2
From Darkness to Light
vail against His Church,’ or His prayer be answered,
‘ that they may be all one, as Thou, Father, in Me, and
I in Thee; that they also may be one in Us; that the
world may believe that Thou hast sent Me’ ? ” 1 I
could neither explain the difficulty nor get it explained.
As yet the Catholic and Roman Church, for whatever
reason, never entered into my thoughts. These early
troubles were the beginning of what I may truly call my
ten years’ agony. For it took me all that time—that is,
from 1862 to 1872—to find my way from darkness to
light.
It was not very long before it dawned upon me that
every Anglican, of whatever school, was in reality a law
to himself, and that he acted on his own authority: and
then it was that the question of authority became to me
the c<articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesicu” and ever
afterwards. I asked every one I met, “ By what authority
dost thou believe, and doest thou these things ? ” Some
times, on my inquiry of this or that divine, I was
referred to the Prayer-book as my authority, sometimes
to the bathers of the Church, sometimes to the Primitive
Church. It took me some years to discover the fallacy
of such appeals to authority; why, I cannot think. But
that is always the way when one becomes a Catholic.
One is sure to feel and say, “ How could it have taken
so long to discover what a moment’s serious thought and
the exercise of a little common sense ought to have
revealed ? How is it that every Anglican cannot see
it ? ” The answer, of course, is that they have not the
gift of faith. They even might see it—that is to say,
might be intellectually convinced of the fallacy of such
1 St. John xvii. 21.
�From Darkness to Light
3
^appeals, and moreover of the logical standpoint of the
Catholic Church; and yet, for all that, they will not,
and cannot become Catholics. For—and here I must
be pardoned for making a considerable digression—in
tellectual conviction is not faith. It cannot be too
strongly insisted upon at this present moment (January,
1901). There are thousands and tens of thousands to-day
who are intellectually convinced that of all bodies of men
calling themselves Christians, the Catholic Church alone
is logical and unassailable in its credentials. But they
do not, and will not, ever become Catholics because they
have not faith.
Let me give an illustration of the difference between
intellectual conviction and faith. For several years
the astronomers Adams and Leverrier were intellectually
convinced of the existence of the planet Neptune. It
was not till 1846 that M. Galle, of Berlin, actually saw
it. This similitude explains itself.
God alone can give the faculty of seeing as well
in the order of grace as in that of nature; and until
He gives it, no man can attain to it by any process
of scientific inference. And here, let me observe,
many of the so-called apostasies of our days are to be
explained. They are not really apostasies. It is simply
this, that certain men have reasoned themselves into the
•Church and then have reasoned themselves out again.
They were merely intellectually convinced, and were
received on the strength of this conviction by priests who
possibly took too much for granted, and who neglected
to satisfy themselves about che faith of their neophytes,
accounting such precautions as superfluous in the case of
educated men or members of the Universities. But these
�4
From Darkness to Light
people are not apostates, for they never had the faith.
When a man has once the real gift of faith—that is to say,
the gift of God’s grace, which elevates his reason above
his natural powers and attainments, so that it rises and
passes from intellectual conviction into faith, which is an
act of the reason but different in kind as well as degree
from intellectual consent—when, I say, a man once has
this great gift of God, it is impossible for him, so I think,
to lose it, and to relapse into any form of Protestantism.
He may lose it by wilfully and persistently sinning
against the faith, and, being punished by judicial blind
ness, become an infidel. This, of course, is true in the
abstract. But, in the concrete, it may well be doubted
whether this or that person among the exceedingly few
apostates of to-day has really lost the faith. For myself,,
I do not believe they have.
But to return to my subject. At length I saw through
the fallacy of any appeal to the Prayer-book, or the Fathers,,
or the Primitive Church, or the Church of the Ritualists.
To begin with the last. A Ritualist has always seemed:
to me to be one who forms for himself his own theory of”
the Church, and then religiously obeys, not the Church,
but his own theory of it. He is as much a law to himself
as the extremest Evangelical.
His is merely a case of
obedience to self once removed. All Anglicans likewiseform their own theory of the Prayer-book, their owa
commentary on the Fathers of the Church, their own
account of the Primitive Church. They are simply a law
to themselves, and the slaves of a self-imposed obedience.
This conviction of my mind was, I know not why, very
slow in its growth, but it came at last, and was indeed a
disillusionment! But, besides this, it occurred to me to-
�From Darkness to Light
5
inquire of what practical use is the dead letter of any
book, whether Prayer-book, or Patristic writings, or even
the Bible itself. For any practical purpose, what is wanted
is the living voice of authority to determine infallibly what
the book means or does not mean in the cause of Holy
Writ; and what is true or false doctrine in the pages of all
other writers, even those of the Fathers of the Church,
all of whom—with the solitary exception of St. Gregory
Nazianzen—we as Catholics know have more or less
•committed themselves, here and there, to false doctrine.
Where is the living voice among Anglicans ? Echo
answers, “ Where ? ” It is quite past my comprehension
how such men as Lord Halifax fail to see what is so
obvious, and keep on appealing with wearisome monotony
to what the Prayer - book teaches, or the Church of
England teaches, when the fact must be patent to him,
as it is to all the world, that there is no living authorized
interpreter of either, and never can be, unless it be the
Crown, which of course they repudiate. Here I find
I must relinquish the continuous narrative of the
process of my conversion for want of space. I will
proceed to notice one or two of the chief difficulties
which occurred to me on the march to the Catholic
Church, and the solution of them which satisfied
me, but may not, I am perfectly aware, satisfy
everybody.
The first difficulty occurred to me in the condemnation
of Private Judgement by the Catholic Church. Catholic
teaching on this point seemed to me inconsistent with
itself; because at one moment it insists on the use of
Private Judgement, and in the next it absolutely forbids
it. The answer, however, is very simple ; though it was
�6
From Darkness to Light
some time in coming home to me. Of course, a man
must use his reason to examine the credentials of the
Catholic Church. When he is satisfied with them, and
has found the true Church, he gives up his Private
Judgement and submits to the judgement of the Church.
As Cardinal Newman writes, in his own inimitable style,.
“Those who are external to the Church must begin with
Private Judgement: they use it in order to ultimately
supersede it; as a man out of doors uses a lamp on a
dark night, and puts it out when he gets home. What
would be thought of his bringing it into the drawing
room ? ” 1
I was puzzled for a time with another plausible con
tention. It occurred to me that it might be said, “ Yoh
admit that by Private Judgement a man finds out the
Catholic Church. Well, then, although he subsequently
lays it aside, yet what was Private Judgement in the first
instance must always be Private Judgement. By Private
Judgement he began; Private Judgement, therefore, is the
real foundation of his subsequent belief.” But I saw
before long that this objection proves a great deal too
much. It seems to imply, at least to me, that, in the
last resort, truth is nothing more to a man than what
seems to him to be truth. A most dangerous doctrine,
'truly, as well as utterly false! It spells Idealism in
Philosophy, Licentiousness in Morals, and Anarchy in
Politics. Surely truth is not dependent for its being on
Private Judgement. By Private Judgement we attain ta
it, but the truth was there before we discovered it, and
no matter what we think about it; and, the moment we
arrive at it, we lest upon the truth, not upon the Private
1 Loss and Gain, p. 203.
�From Darkness to Light
7
Judgement which brought us to it. By Private Judge
ment, at some time of my life, I apprehended the
authority of the English Crown; the moment I did
so, I gave my intelligent allegiance to it. Hence
forth, I rested upon the authority of the Crown, not
upon my mental apprehension of it. I am now a
British subject, not because mentally I have come to
that conclusion, but because of the /ar/. Or, to adopt
another illustration: by means of a ladder I mount a
platform; I am then standing on the platform, and not
on the ladder which is left down below. By Private
Judgement, then, a man must find out the Catholic
Church. When he finds it, it is a huge objective fact.
All men must be agreed about it as a gigantic organiza
tion, which has existed these nineteen hundred years.
For all that time—the name and date of every Pope
being historical facts—it has become a chief factor in
the history of Europe. All that time it has taught with
the living voice, and ruled with an incomparable dis
cipline. There it is to-day, as of old, independent
altogether of what men may think about it, a stub
born, undeniable, unmistakable fact. Whether it
be true or false in its doctrine is beside the mark :
there it is, and there it will be; that is all we are
maintaining.
Well, then, a man discovers this Church; he makes his
allegiance to it, and is formally accepted by it. Hence
forth he rests upon the authority of the Catholic Church,
not upon his mental apprehension of it. He is a
Catholic, not because he thinks he is, but because of
the fact of his formal reception into the Catholic
Church : whereas an Anglican rests, not in facts, but
�8
From Darkness to Light
in his theory of facts. Not one of the objects of his
religious allegiance really exists except in his imagina
tion. He will say, “Surely the Prayer-book is a fact.”
To which I reply, “ Well, of course it is; but not the
Catholic interpretation of it; for all men are not agreed
about that; indeed, the great majority are violently
opposed to it. As long as there is a Broad Church
interpretation of it, or an Evangelical, so long the High
Church interpretation of it must be a theory and not a
fact.” The same with the Fathers of the Church or
the Primitive Church. These things are, of course,
facts in themselves, but not to the Anglican, only the
Anglican interpretation of them, which is a very different
thing. From beginning to end, therefore, the Anglican
is a creature of Private Judgement, not a child of
faith; and from the extremest Ritualist down to the
most rabid Evangelical, he is a Protestant pure and
simple.
But all this is reasoning in the mere natural order of
things. Let us go to the supernatural. By Private
Judgement, then, aided by grace—for without that he
can do nothing—a man finds out the Catholic Church ;
then Private Judgement is superseded by Faith, which,
as has been already said, elevates and sustains the reason
above the level of its own natural powers. It is on
that platform that he stands ever afterwards, and Private
Judgement is the ladder by which he reached it and is
of no further use.
Upon this, another objection occurred to me, which
may be worded thus: “ That is a convenient way of
getting out of a difficulty by appealing to faith which is
not cognizable by any human sense. It may be or it
�From Darkness to Light
9
■may not be as you say, but that is not argument after
all.” To this I reply: “ Quite so ; to every one but a
Catholic it is, I grant, inconclusive. But, then, must it
not of its very nature be so ? I cannot show anybody
my faith, as I can show him a bunch of keys taken from
my pocket. All I know is that I have it, and that the
non-Catholic has it not. and that that great gift of God
is my foundation, and no longer Private Judgement,
which is, ipso facto, driven out by faith just as darkness
is by light.”
I do not remember any other serious intellectual
difficulty, or one that detained me for long. Bad popes
and bad priests never troubled me for a moment. The
office and the man are so obviously distinct, that the
mind must be addled that does not see it at a glance.
A policeman may be an immoral man, but the ’bus
drivers and the cabmen will obey him, and rein in
their horses at his bidding, because he is a police
man. The sentence of an immoral judge will avail
to hang a guilty murderer, because it is the official
act of a judge; it is not invalid because the judge is a
bad man.
But, before I formulate my five conclusions, I must
here declare my greatest obstacle to my conversion,
which was not intellectual but moral. I loved the
English Church intensely. It was associated with
everybody and everything dear to me from the first
■dawn of consciousness. From a worldly point of view,
to change my faith was to lose everything dear to me
and to gain nothing. It meant the wreck of one’s life,
shattered nerves, and, for all I knew, absolute destitu
tion. Can it be wondered that I felt reluctant to take
�io
From Darkness to Light
the step ? Whilst I cannot accuse myself positively of
bad faith, yet I must own that the terrible prospect
before me made me dilatory in the work of finding out
the truth. I have always accounted it as nothing short
of a signal miracle of God’s grace by which a conver
sion such as mine was brought about. For ever and
for ever blessed be His Holy Name, and the inter
cession of His Blessed Mother!
I come then, finally, to the five conclusions already
alluded to, which pointed, unmistakably—in the reputed
language of Lord Macaulay after one of Cardinal
Wiseman’s famous lectures—to “ either the Catholic
Church or Babel.”
Point I.—If my soul is to be saved, God must show me
the way. It is not for me to choose my own way, and
offer that to God. These words may seem a truism,
but they are not really so; on the contrary, they are
most useful as hitting off the Catholic and Protestant
position exactly. The Ritualist, the High Churchman,
the Broad Churchman, the Evangelical, the Noncon
formist, all alike formulate their own views of religion,,
and offer them for God’s acceptance as their account
of salvation. The Catholic calls that putting the cart
before the horse. The Catholic standpoint is this : that
it is for God to reveal His own way of salvation, and
all that man has to do is to find out where that, is and
to obey it. Further, that God has revealed it, and has
committed this revelation to a competent authority
upon earth, to guard it from error and to enforce
its observance. It is the duty of man to find out
where this oracle of truth is, and submit mind and
heart to it.
�From Darkness to Light
11
Point II.— When God does reveal the way of salva
tion, it will and must be one—
(1) One in number.
(2) One in unity.
(1) One in number, i.e., “One Lord, One Faith,
One Baptism” (Eph. iv. 5). Nowhere does Scripture
give a hint as to more than one Church. When St. John
writes to the Seven Churches of Asia, he is, of course,
writing to seven hierarchies of the one only Church.
And so historians sometimes speak of the English
Church or French Church, meaning the Catholic Church
in England or France. But mere common sense postu
lates oneness in number. It is impossible to imagine
more than one way of salvation. Of course, it is
conceivable that Almighty God could make many Ways
of salvation, because He can do all things; but it is not
conceivable how confusion worse confounded would be
avoided if He did. Supposing there was one way for
Europe, another for Asia, another for Africa, another for
America, a man would have to change his religion four
times in a voyage round the world; and where could he
tell where his good ship passed from one way of salvation
into that of another? Some spiritual Trinity House
would have to mark the supremely important boundaries
of buoys. I know this is fooling ; but then, the theory
I am trying to gibbet is fooling too.
(2) Next, if the revelation is one in number it will be
one in unity too; that is to say, the earthly teachers of
it will be one, and the taught will be one. Why?
Because it is the truth. Truth is one: one in the
teacher, and one in the taught of its very nature.
For instance, London is a city on the Thames. That
�12
From Darkness to Light
is truth; and so all schoolmasters are one in teaching it,
and all scholars one in learning it. Why ? Because it
is true. About God’s way of salvation, then, wherever
located on the earth—and located it must be somewhere
—there will be unity in the teacher and unity in the
taught. If I do not find unity in the teacher and unity
in the taught, then I shall know that the truth is not
there, from the very fact that there is not unity about it.
Let us be quite sure about this. The following proposi
tion is undeniable. Wherever the truth is, there must
be unity of the teacher and unity of the taught about it,
because it is true. But the proposition, “ Wherever there
is unity in the teacher and unity in the taught there is
truth,” cannot, of course, be maintained as it stands;
because teachers and scholars may conceivably be agreed
upon what is false. Yet, observe, in religious argument,
even this last proposition is undeniable. For, as a matter
of fact, no religious system of human opinion has ever
succeeded in maintaining unity, and for this reason :
because the moment you depart from the Divine rule of
faith, wherever it may be, you are landed, ipso facto, in
human opinion. There is no intermediate position
possible. Now, human opinion must of its very nature
be variable, because the human mind has been created
by God as variable as the human face. When Dr.
Benson, the late Archbishop of Canterbury, ordered
prayers for unity of belief among his flock, I remember
saying that he might just as usefully pray for unity of
countenance among them. Therefore, in point of fact,
though not perhaps in logic, the religious inquirer may
be quite sure that where there is not unity in the teacher
-and unity in the taught, there cannot be truth ; and that,
�'
From Darkness to Light
13,
conversely, wherever there is unity in the teacher and
unity in the taught, there, ipso facto, is Divine truth.
Point III.—If God does make a revelation of the way
by which the soul is to be saved, that revelation will be
infallible.
A. Infallible in its Subject Matter—
(1) Because Almighty God delivers it. How can it
be otherwise ?
(2) Because my soul wants nothing less. I cannot
trifle with eternity. I cannot afford to make a mistake
about it, which it is impossible to put right after death.
B. Infallible in its Earthly Mouthpiece—
(1) For of what practical use would be infallible truth
with a fallible mouthpiece ?
(2) How can Almighty God punish me for ever, if I
refuse to believe a teacher who may mislead me? It is
my solemn duty to refuse belief in such an one. Re
member, we have to give an account of our faith as well
as of our morals, and of faith before morals. “ He that
believeth and is baptized shall be saved : he that
believeth not shall be condemned” (St. Mark xvi. 16).
How can God punish me eternally for want of faith,
unless he gives me an infallible teacher, whereby I can
secure infallible truth ? An infallible teacher of salva
tion is the most pressing of all the needs of the soul, and
yet the very mention of an infallible teacher makes the
average Englishman shiver in his shoes. This is indeed
astounding. Well, then, somewhere on earth, and in.
some authoritative body of men, or in the office of one
man, must be placed by Almighty God the infallible
oracle of truth. The way of salvation, then, is reduced
to great simplicity by this time. All a man has to do is-
�14
From Darkness to Light
to find out where the oracle is, and then believe what it
teaches, and do what it commands.
Point IV.—This way of salvation will be exclusive.
That is to say, it will be the only one ; and every other
way of salvation will be false. This means that the true
Church, wherever it is, will not only be the best of all
Churches, but the only one. This point seems to require
no further remark; and yet I remember a catechumen
once saying to me when teaching it, “ Oh, Father, that
is a tall order and no mistake ! ”
Point V.—To accept when once seen or wilfully to reject
this way of salvation is a matter of life or death eternal.
This seems obvious from the words of Scripture already
quoted. To see it not, by a man’s own fault, is likewise
to be lost. Once the solid conviction has crossed a
man’s brain, that if he inquired honestly into the cre
dentials of the Catholic Church he would be convinced
of the truth of it, and bound to submit to it in mind and
will—that man must go on in his inquiry, otherwise he
will be lost. To see it not, not by a man’s fault—that is
to say, in a case where it has never occurred to a man’s
mind that his own religion is false or that any other
religion can be true—then, not to believe in the Catholic
Church will not, of course, entail eternal loss on that
account. All this was self-evident to me, but it may
not be so to others. With that I have nothing to do.
My task is nearly done. Only a few words are needed
-to show that the Catholic and Roman Church alone can
satisfy these five points or conclusions. Let the reli
gious inquirer examine any system of religion other than
that of the Catholic Church, he will find that it breaks
-down on one or more of these five points. Ask the
�From Darkness to Light
15
Ritualist first, who is in many ways nearer to the truth
(and yet of him I say, “thou art so near and yet so
far”), is he one with his brother Anglicans in faith?
And what must he answer if he speaks the truth ? Is
he infallible, or the Church of his invention ? Is the
Church Times infallible? No; he breaks down hope
lessly, and all his fellow-Protestants when submitted to
the test of my five points. But ask next the Catholic
Church if it can satisfy these same points, and you will
soon see how perfectly she can stand the test.
Point I.—This point, as we have already seen, is the
■Catholic standpoint par excellence.
Point II.—Is the Catholic and Roman Church one ?
Yes; absolutely one in number and in unity all over
the world, in every climate, in every race of men:
-one in the teachers and one in the taught. It is this
marvellous fact that in point of fact converted me. I
have always considered this unity of nineteen hundred
years as God’s greatest miracle.
Point III.—Is the Catholic Church infallible? Yes;
and it has always claimed to be, and has acted as the
infallible Divine teacher of truth from the time of Christ.
The Catholic Church alone of all religious bodies claims
infallibility. The very claim sufficiently proved its truth
to me.
Point IV.—Is the Catholic Church exclusive ? Yes
it says, “I, and I only am the one true religion. All
others are false, and not to be accounted religions at
all.”
»
Point V.—Is it a matter of life or death eternal to
accept when seen or wilfully reject the Catholic Church ?
The Catholic Church replies “ Yes.” She alone teaches
�16
From Darkness to Light
this; no other system of Christianity has dared toteach it.
Here I conclude the history of my conversion. I do
not pretend to do anything more than show what led me
to the Catholic Church. I do not lay down any law for
others. All I know is that I have the faith, and in the
profession and peace of it I have lived twenty-nine years.
Not a shadow of a doubt in it has ever crossed my mind
during that long time. In this faith I still live, and inthis faith I hope to die. Amen.
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY
THE CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY, LONDON.
u
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From darkness to light
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Robinson, W. Croke
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 19 cm.
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Catholic Church
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Catholic Church-Apologetic Works
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Text
THE PROSPECTS OF
CATHOLICISM1
By
the
Very Rev. Canon WILLIAM BARRY, D.D.
“ I persist in thinking that the prevailing form for the
Christianity of the future will be the form of Catholicism.”—
Matthew Arnold.
Much has been lately written from a hostile point of
view on the methods, aims, and actual working of the
Catholic Church. It is always possible — and, I
suppose, always will be—to set forth in a dazzling
light the reasons why Englishmen who loved their
freedom, and men of science who remembered
Galileo, should have refused to bend the knee before
Popes and Congregations ; yet when the worst has
been uttered, a student of history will be tempted to
say in arrest of judgement ; “ Tarry a little, there is
something else.” Forces or elements in the past ;
necessary demands of more than one sort in the
present ; social, artistic, religious motives on a very
great scale, forbid us to imagine that the epitaph of
Catholicism will be written during the twentieth
1 Reprinted by permission of Editor and Publisher, from the
National Review for October, 1901.
�2
The Prospects of Catholicism
century. It is still among the mightiest of this
world’s kingdoms, and its borders have been widely
extended since the French Revolution threatened to
make an end of it altogether.
I wish to estimate some of the causes in virtue of
which it is destined not simply to survive but to
flourish, and perhaps to rule, in a social state demo
cratic by constitution, tolerant of all beliefs and
unbeliefs by law, scientific in its great, processes of
industry, and subject to rapid developments, or
crises, in its daily life. What we perceive at a first
glance is eminently unfavourable to the Catholic
Church ; but, as we -see at a second, not to that
Church alone. The art and mystery of religion,
whether as a profession or a creed, have come into
such peril as never perhaps was since Europe
accepted the Christian teaching. Dogma is fading
from men’s minds ; an apostasy from long-cherished
ideals, marked by blank indifference to all preaching
and the emptying of churches on Sunday, is notice
able in every large city on every continent. Women
hold by religion ; men to an enormous extent do
not. The ranks of the clergy are thinning. It is
no longer a way of life which leads to renown
or holds out prizes tempting enough to draw the
most intellectual or vigorous of the rising generation;
and doubt on the one hand, a lack of prestige on the
other, diminish the attraction it formerly exercised
when the Church governed in partnership with the
State. We are entering on a period of intense and
convinced, yet largely unconscious, Secularism.
By Secularism I mean Atheism in practice. It is
much easier to forget God than to deny His exist
ence ; and these millions have forgotten or never
knew Him. Their guide and philosopher is the
�The Prospects of Catholicism
3
social condition in which they were brought up ; for
they do not reason, they simply imitate. Quite
unaware that their unbelief has all the momentum
in it of an active disbelief, they would be astonished
if they could see themselves in the looking-glass of
modern philosophy, which yet might be their salva
tion. Such a looking-glass, clear and level, has been
held up to the century by Professor Haeckel of Jena,
in his Riddle of the Universe, a book worth reading
because it proclaims with absolute frankness the
secret many others would fold in silk and samite, of
a doctrine by no means rare and probably on the
increase.1. Professor Haeckel assures us that religion
has, at last, received its deathstroke from “ science.”
To sum up his conclusions without appearing rheto
rical, is difficult; and rhetoric, on these solemnsubjects, will sound hollow. But this much may be
said. The Professor declares that, like Frederick II.
of Prussia, he is a confirmed “ atheist and thanatist ” ;
to his thinking, Nature has been proved to be a'
scheme of blind energies, of ceaseless transmutations,
with no intellect guiding them, which proceed from
zero to zero and back again. Providence is a myth.
All things come to pass, indeed, by fixed mechanical
necessity, or, as Goethe sings in oracular stanzas, by
“ great iron laws,” but still without purpose or design,
and thus strictly by chance. There is no substance
called soul; consciousness, a transient phenomenon,
perishes with the body ; belief in existence beyond
the grave is a superstition. When death arrives all
is over. In one word, the old ideals have become
incredible as any fiction of Greeks or Hindoos.
Their day is done.
1 The Riddle of the Universe. By Ernest Haeckel.
Translation. London : Watts & Co.
English
�4
The Prospects of Catholicism
Were this frightful picture offered to thousands of
modern men as their portrait, I do not see how they
could fairly question its accuracy. “ Atheists and
thanatists” they are, without God in this world or
hope in any other. But they would resent the sudden
illumination. They do not want to know their own
minds. When M. Brunetiere, taking this philosophy
at its own valuation, defined it as “ the bankruptcy
of science,” there was a loud outcry from the very
school of which Professor Haeckel is a leading light.
Yet surely, if science can teach no more than we
learn from The Riddle of the Universe, bankrupt it is
to the last farthing. A more absolute negative was
never declared. It is the tabula rasa of religion,
ethics, history, tradition, aspiration. No God, no
soul, no conscience, no Hereafter—could any system
approach nearer to the term we have called zero ?
It sweeps away all principles to let loose all instincts.
“ But,” returns the Professor, “ it leaves the social
instinct, which is morality.” The social instinct of
brutes, combining to kill and eat their feebler
brethren ! Or the instinct of apes with their five
senses aflame ! The war of all against all, which a
clearer-sighted man than Professor Haeckel, the
atheist Hobbes, could reduce to civilized peace only
by means of his Leviathan, omnipotent tyranny !
Such are the dangers of an immoral and irreligious
negation ; dangers most real and pressing, as the
omens warn us, in London and in Paris, in New
York and in Berlin, and wherever society has allowed
certain safeguards to be weakened in the rush of
competitive commerce or as a homage to the claims
of overweening “ science.” For, it cannot be denied,
the ethics which found themselves on a mere social
instinct lead directly to the worship of wealth and
�The Prospects of Catholicism
5
pleasure ; they abolish the Categorical Imperative
and know not how to forbid with authority passions
and desires that had better not be named here.
Every lapse in thought from the Christian standard
spells degradation for multitudes. But it- spells
misery too. The experiment of life, reduced to a
play of molecular forces, does not correspond to the
nature of things ; it is a dream upon which-reality is
always breaking in, and the dreamer cannot sleep in
peace.
Hence the innumerable nightmares which weigh
upon modern cities ; and the more advanced their
condition, so much the more do they breed these
unpleasant phenomena. The American prides him
self on his smartness ; but it is in his busiest market
place that spiritism, faith-healing, and impostures
wilder than these, flourish exceedingly. In Paris of
late years every conceivable superstition has found a
home. Among ourselves, the temper which welcomed
Neo-Buddhism is not extinct, and ridicule fails to kill
the varieties of occult science. An unwholesome
mysticism spreads like a fungus over much recent
literature ; it will continue to spread so long as
Professor Haeckel’s unbelief darkens the sky. Let
it be granted that there is an eclipse of faith ; who
will expect from the abyss of nescience to see a fresh
dawn travelling up towards the zenith ? These are
tokens, not of health, but of a disease which is too
deeply seated for the stethpscope or scalpel of crude
Materialism to reach it, still less to contribute towards
its removal.
Anarchy in thought, licence in conduct, severe
opposition of class interests, and a growing melan
choly which betrays itself in the shape of insanity or
even suicide, cannot be deemed evidence either of
�6
The Prospects of CatkoRcism ' .
truth conquering falsehood, or of progress moving
on to a higher civilization. We all go by our own
experience, and few things have struck me more
forcibly than the lack of discipline, the breaking up
of character into uncertain impulse, which result
from a hearty acceptance of teaching like Professor
Haeckel’s. When I compare it with the Exercises
of St. Ignatius Loyola, it reads like the uncreat
ing word which brings back chaos and repeals
Divine Law. Thousands of years ago its fatal
formula was discovered, “Nothing is true, every
thing is permitted.” For observe, there can be no
inviolable right where appetite is the rule and
sanction of conduct. And what is the “ social in
stinct ” but appetite ? To make a god of society
was the Comtist delusion. It has not gained in
persuasiveness since Nietzsche called humanity a
herd—which truly they would be, and nothing more,
did we not view them in the light of an ethics
founded on eternal justice and appealing to selfevident intuitions of right and wrong. For want of
such an acknowledged and objective standard, we
are menaced by a fresh outbreak of barbarism, not
from beneath but from above. We shall do well to
bear in mind always that it was the French nobles,
rather than the French people, who pulled down
the oldest monarchy in Europe and made 1793
inevitable.
Society is in danger, and the disciples of an
unbelieving science threaten it with destruction.
However we regard the Christian creed, is it not
manifest that its total disappearance, nay, its
effective relegation to a secondary and private rank,
would produce changes in the social order as great
as must ensue in the physical were the moon to lose
�The Prospects of Catholicism
7
its power over the tides ? Greater indeed, for the
elements thus unchained would be antagonists by
nature ; avarice, envy, lust, ambition, all’ conscious
that their time was short, and that no Day of Judge
ment would follow. How avert so tremendous a
catastrophe ? That is the question which rises to
our lips on hearing of Socialist propaganda, Anar
chist assassinations, free-will denied in the name of
knowledge, virtue resolved into selfishness, and
immortality derided as an impossible fiction.1 The
Christian dogmas have been hitherto real and
operative beliefs. Take them away, and an immense
vacuum is created, into the depths of which our
ancient world must fall headlong, since by Chris
tianity it was built and sustained. What, then,
ought to be done in the brief period which may yet
be allowed us to withstand the secularist triumph ?
Men whose character deserves sincere respect
have answered, “ Let us turn back to the New
Testament and preach the Christianity of Christ.”
I say so too ; but I cannot persuade myself that a
living order of things is to be deduced from the
pages of a book ; or that an abstract Christ, the
creation of literature, is really more than a phantom.
The experiment of teaching religion from a book
alone has been tried, and has ended in disaster.
We are looking on, in grief or exultation, at what
has been truly called the “passing of Protestantism.”
Private judgement exercised on the Bible is dissolv
ing it apace, and may be reckoned among the chief
causes of our present discontents. When the
Puritan gives up his Bible, nay, when he begins to
doubt of it, the ground on which he stands is shaken
. 1 This sentence was written a few hours before the assassina
tion of President McKinley.
�8
The Prospects of Catholicism
with earthquake, his religion leaves him, and he
turns for comfort to making money on principles
which it is hard to distinguish from the lowest form
of Positivism. The Christ of the Gospel vanishes ;
Mammon reigns in His stead. Is not that the
lugubrious chronicle of New England ? Puritan,
Unitarian, Universalist—then company-promoting
and Wall. Street as Jerusalem the Golden ! It may
be difficult, as one considers these things, not to fall
into satire ; but satire will not help us towards the
spiritual restoration of which we are in search.
Any power that aims at the revival of Christian
faith under modern conditions must be independent,
world-wide, supernatural, and in its general effect
miraculous. From a merely human level it cannot
raise mankind out of the slough into which Atheism
has betrayed it. No department of State will be
equal to such a task, for the State is this fallen
society and itself needs redemption. Private effort
is laudable at all times ; any association which has
retained even a fragment of true Christianity will,
thus far, be telling in the good cause ; but there is
only one Church in contact with European and
American society which fulfils the conditions re
quired. Independent, supernatural, miraculous—
these high epithets have belonged from of old to the
Catholic Church, and are hers to-day. She does not
preach an abstract or merely historical Saviour ; she
has never simply relied on a written record ; and
while she treats with kingdoms and republics as a
power of this world, she deals directly with the
individual as an ambassador from the next. In one
point of view she is accessible to touch and sight;
in another she is ideal, spiritual, transcendental.
And she fills every period of Christian history with
�The Prospects of Catholicism
z
9
her achievements, her sufferings, and her victorious
resistance to hostile powers.
I am endeavouring to get at the facts, not to palm
off on credulous readers (if any such were in the
twentieth centuiy) a partisan argument. To clear
the ground, I should be prepared, at this stage, to
distinguish between Catholicism as a creed and
Catholicism as a system, unreal as the distinction
seems to me. I will eschew ecclesiastical politics,
which, though they fill the “ religious ”• newspapers,
are not religion. For reasons which lie on the
surface it is natural, but singularly misleading, in this
country, to look at the Catholic Movement as an
assault on English freedom, and we are treated to
quotations. from King John, or references to the
Armada, when we should be considering far deeper
problems. In our modern world, Religion is not, as
it was in the sixteenth century, an affair of State so
much as an affair of the heart. Men follow their
taste, or liking, or conscience, when they worship ;
their beliefs are akin not to party politics, but to their
preferences in literature, in friendship, in that
portion of their lives which is most under their
control and is a matter of choice. Religion is, there, fore, something intimate and deeply personal to
each ; and while politicians stand on their guard
against Rome, or statisticians are showing from
figures that Catholicism makes no headway, a silent
revolution may be moving onward to results no less
unexpected than momentous.
Let me give my conclusion in a nutshell. Cardinal
Newman, reading history on evidence without
straining it, has written that the Pope must, at all
events, be recognized as “heir by default” of
antiquity. The expression gave some little offence
*
�io
The Prospects of Catholicism^
to certain of his critics, who did not perceive that he
took the lowest ground because it was unassailable.
In a like spirit, and that I may come to close quarters
with my argument, I will say that Catholicism is
“ heir by default” of primitive Christianity. Though
it were true that, on paper, we could trace a system
more resembling the organization of which we enjoy
glimpses up and down the New Testament than the
existing Roman Church, as a matter of fact no such
scheme is anywhere visible, or ever was. Strike out
Catholic dogma from the ages ; imagine the Catholic
hierarchy a fiction ; and what is left ? East answers
West that nothing is left. In the concrete, as a
religion accepted, acted upon, by nations, and larger
than a mere sect or school, the Christian Religion
has always been Catholic and is so at the present
day. All modern Churches are fragments hurled
forth, or broken off, from a centre at which the
ancient Faith is still as refulgent as ever. And they
remain Christian simply in so far as they keep what
they have inherited. Survey them all, from the
Anglican on the Extreme Right to the Unitarian or
Universalist on the Extreme Left; what have they
to call Christian which they have not received from
Rome ? Christ Himself, the Bible, the sacred
ordinances, the creeds,—all were brought to Western
Europe and taken thence to America from this single
source. Historically, creed and system are not to be
divided. Rome is the Mother, as she was during
centuries the Mistress, of all the Churches with
which we have any concern.
But this, it may be retorted, was an accident; it is
ancient history ; and now the Churches are indepen
dent of Rome. Then, I ask, do they keep the creeds
intact ? Is the certified Christian dogma which
�The Prospects of Catholicism
11
alone, in history, can be deemed genuine and
authentic, safe with them ? Are they, or are they
riot, everywhere breaking down into a Unitarian
distrust of the miraculous, and tending to substitute
a purely human Christ for the Only Begotten Son of
God ? The suggestion I make, in no mood of
controversy but the opposite, is that in all religious
bodies outside Rome great changes are taking place
which may rend them asunder, dividing between
orthodox and heterodox, and at last between spiritual
and secular, in obedience to forces that cannot be
reconciled. If they hold by the Faith once delivered,
they will approach nearer and nearer to the Roman
spirit, and in time to the Roman system. If they
suffer the Faith to be resolved and melted down,
through stages of what we have termed “ Naturalism,”
until it becomes a form of monistic self-contemplation,
they will prove in the clearest way that Rome is, and
has never ceased to be, the corner stone of Christian
beliefs. I do not know a more serious argument for
all who wish to be orthodox, than this appeal to the
course of history. Is there, I repeat, any solid ground
between Rome and Secularism on which disciples of
the New Testament can take theii' stand ?
There was, so millions were taught, before the
widespread movement of the last century, which has
dealt such fatal blows to Protestant Christians. But
now we are seeing, ever more distinctly,. that the
Reformation, as a constructive effort, has failed.
Take its three great forms, personified in Luther the
mystic, Calvin the legislator, and Socinus the
rationalist. Of Lutheranism not a screed is left;
the man towers up yet as a revolting Titan, the rocks
which he flung against Olympus have fallen back on
the soil, and are dead ashes, vitrified lava. Calvin
�12
The Prospects of Catholicism
has been pictured by his own descendants as a “ ghost
gone shrieking down the wind ” ; his writings are
credible now to none of us, and his dark theology is
made an excuse for believing in no Deity at all.
Socinus, where is he ? In a sense, everywhere ; but
logic, working out his principles to their legitimate
conclusion, shows them to be the sum of all heresies
and the end of dogma. Thus, if we still desire to
believe after any intelligible fashion in the Christ
whom our fathers worshipped, we must come back
to Revelation as untouched by the Reformers. They
have played their part and gone their way.
Many thousands every year join the Roman Church
from a conviction that it is what an illustrious German
Catholic defined it to be, “the objective historical
faith of Christ.” Many more, among Frenchmen or
Italians, who had given it up in their stormy youth,
return to it on similar grounds, as M. Bourget tells us
in the remarkable prologues which he is putting
forth to his collected volumes. Others, like M.
Brunetiere, moved by social considerations and
alarmed at the chaos which they see around them,
take the way to Rome as their only chance of
salvation. The witness of men like M. Taine, who
do not actually join the Church, is if possible more
significant still. These declare that the “ old
Gospel” is necessary now in a degree altogether
unprecedented, as a dyke against the coming bar
barians. But when we ask them what they under
stand by the “old Gospel” it turns out to be the
Catholic version, not Calvin, not Luther, but “ poverty,
chastity, and obedience,” sanctified by the example
of Christ and the medieval or modern Saints. Who,
on the other hand, dreams of taking on himself the
yoke of the Augsburg or the Westminster Confession ?
�The Prospects of Catholicism
13
Where is now that immeasurable Protestant divinity
which once sounded from every pulpit in Northern
Christendom ? It may be discussed in libraries by
certain politic worms ; it has died off the lips and
out of the hearts of ministers, pledged by every
solemn engagement to maintain it. Even the Atone
ment, that primary article, is passed over in a silence
not ambiguous by candidates for ordination, and
Pelagius dictates the sermon from the pages of
Emerson or Carlyle. Of these things the natural,
though commonly tacit, inference is a surrender of
dogma to the Unitarian.
So far, then, as the historical Christian faith is con
cerned, the reformers have ended, not mended, it.
Their ordinances have been resolved into preaching,
preaching into doubt, doubt into a worship of Nature.
Professor Haeckel, in his unceremonious manner,
terms this middle stage “ pseudo-Christianity,” and I
fear this addition, harsh as it sounds, can scarcely
be refuted. Viewing the strict Protestant theology
from first to last, we perceive it as a dissolving pro
cess, in which the three great objects of primitive
belief—Church, Bible, and Redeemer—have been
successively explained away.
The Catholic Church has gained at its expense.
Four centuries—a long chapter in the world’s history
—prove that Rome, however charged with corrup
tion, keeps the heart of religion still beating. The
Gospel that she received she preaches yet. Her
faithful are orthodox Christians, while the rebels, as
she foretold them, who separated from her in that
name, have shorn it of divinity, and—strange paradox!
—are indignant with her because she insists that the
Bible is truly God’s Word and Jesus of Nazareth His
Son. Her faith has not changed, and its permanence
�14
The Prospects of Catholicism
is the measure of their defection. If Luther or
Calvin could have foreseen this state of things when
they broke away, would it not have left them dumb
with amazement ? And, observe, the more it is urged
that Roman officials are, or have been, a scandal to
their high calling ; that genius is not to be found in
Catholic apologists, or insight and ability among
bishops and clergy ; so much the more conclusive is
our argument in favour of a secret Divine influence
which would not suffer its purpose to be undone by
such weak and needy instruments.
For it is not by the inertia of dead custom, but
amid warfare without ceasing, that Catholic dogma
has been preserved against Jansenists, philosophers,
revolutionaries, and the terrific onslaught of atheistic
science. No man will pretend that the Church has
folded her arms and turned aside from battle.
“ Doomed to death, but fated not to die,” she has
brought down into this new century her creed and
practice, the same in all essentials, and even in
language, that we may study in the pages of Tertullian
or Cyprian ; in brief, she is antiquity, which cannot
be laid away in a tomb, but is living an immortal
life, as much at home in Chicago or San Francisco
as it was in Alexandria or in the Rome of the
Csesars.
This Church, let it never be forgotten, fills the
whole Christian time, is its central fact, and yet
shows no sign of decrepitude. It is the one cosmo
politan power on earth ; and if Christ came to
establish a visible kingdom, this must be its head and
front. Dogma within, discipline without; a Divine
ritual binding them together ; certainly nothing so
wonderful, no polity so mysterious, can be adduced
in comparison from any age or civilization. And for
�The Prospects of Catholicism
15
the last hundred years this unparalleled system has
stood upon free and public suffrage ; it is the largest
voluntary association ever beheld, yet more intimately
connected in head and members than when the Pope
disposed of Europe as its sovereign lord.
To exhaust these considerations is not easy, nor
can it be requisite. I pass on to the goal to which
they point. Seeing that we live in times of a wide*
spread falling away from the ideas and laws by
which men professed to govern their conduct
until yesterday, it is natural for a religious spirit to
inquire if the battle is lost and Christianity doomed.
He musters in thought what remains of its fighting
squadrons. The banners of Luther and Calvin float
on the breeze, but over a deserted camp. Confusion
reigns in the once serried lines of Protestantism,
which, instead of defending the Bible, are tearing its
text to pieces, denying its authority, and scattering
its leaves among the Korans, Upanishads, and Avestas
of mere Eastern speculations. A Unitarian blight
has fallen on the very belief in Christ; He is no
longer the sure refuge from doubt and trouble, but
Himself the storm-centre of controversy and a sign
to be contradicted. Nor does it appear that the
captains of the host are more confident than the
rank and file. Much talk has suddenly sprung up
about “ the Church ”—ministers, it is said, may be
perplexed, but “ the Church ” holds an unchanging
creed. If so, why does she not produce it and calm
the minds of her ministers ? And what is this
“ Church ” ? Is she infallible or indefectible, that
she should advance her high pretensions where
private judgement was the cry ? How will she
establish her claim ? On the Bible ? Then we have
got into a magic ring and seem to be prisoners of
�16
The Prospects of Catholicism
a sophism. Until the net is broken, effective warfare
against unbelief cannot be resumed.
That Presbyterians and Nonconformists should
exalt the Church as endowed with some dogmatic
power binding on individuals, is but one instance of
a change anticipated scores of years before it hap
pened by intelligent observers. From the religion
of a Book, however sacred—from a literary, pulpit
service, and a sort of Sunday diagram—the devout
have been rudely awakened by the great wind of
criticism which has smitten .the four corners of the
house together. “Bible Christianity,” independent
of a Divine witness outside its covers, has come to an
end, and with it the Reformation. But the religious
man hears on all sides of a “ Church ” which was
once the emptiest word in his vocabulary ; now he
is told of its prerogatives, its commission, its assurance
against deadly error. It is a teaching Church ; or,
as the enemy exclaims, it is “ Sacerdotalism ” come
to life again. Above all is it so in the English ,
Communion, where efforts the most violent and
persevering fail to arrest the march of these Catholic
traditions, and Low Church and Broad Church are
swept along in a movement that has never paused
for seventy years. “ To those who have eyes to see,”
wrote Anthony Froude when these things were yet
beginning, “ there is no more instructive symptom of
the age than the tendency of Presbyterian, Indepen
dent, and even Unitarian clergy to assume a sacer
dotal dress and appearance. Their fathers insisted
that between laymen and ministers there was no
difference but in name. The modern ministers
form themselves into a caste.” 1
So we come round to Milton’s sarcasm, “ New
1 Froude’s Studies, iii. 173.
�The Prospects of Catholicism
17
presbyter is but old priest writ large.” The Church
of England, especially, as De Maistre foretold in
1816, is playing her part in this extraordinary change
of scene and costume.. Liturgy, sacrifice, priesthood,
that conception of the Christian worship and the
inward life which Protestant writers cast out as
medieval, as characteristic of the Dark Ages, now
finds itself honoured with a pedigree from “the
Fathers,” who are taken to be authorities beyond
appeal. The two ends of history, no longer dis
severed, make an unbroken chain. It is more and
more recognized that Christianity is a fact—a world
of facts—outside our fancies, and not to be evolved
from any man’s inner consciousness, but real as the
Roman Empire was real, with its government, laws,
creeds, institutions ; the work of a creative spirit,
distinct and ascertainable amid heretical aberrations.
All its parts hang together ; hence, when the Oxford
Tractarians began to teach the Apostolic succession,
they were warned that the logic of facts would carry
them on to full-blown Popery. It has done so. One
idea has brought up another ; from the decent
celebration of the Eucharist they have gone forward
to Masses of Requiem, to Reservation, to the cultus
of the Madonna, to demands for Roman orders, and
to official correspondence with Leo XIII., who in
the eyes of not a few is Patriarch of the West, with
special claims over the Church of Canterbury. What
a revolution in thought, what a change of sentiment,
has the nineteenth century witnessed in sturdy
Protestants, whose grandfathers called the Pope
Antichrist ! Rome has yielded nothing ; England,
as represented by thousands of its clergy and a
powerful laity behind them, has .granted that in the
quarrel of the Reformation dogma was saved by the
�18
The Prospects of Catholicism
Holy See, ruined by Cranmer and his confederates.
On every point, it appears, Rome was in the right,
except when she maintained that she could not err.
Well, she has not erred, if we may believe the
verdict of English High Churchmen. Whatever she
has added, in their view, to the simple faith, at least
she has kept it from dissolution.
Such, too, was the judgement of a famous French
writer, Augustin Thierry, at the end of his long
studies. “ I am an historian,” he said, “ a tired
rationalist who submits himself to the Church. I see
the facts ; I perceive in history the manifest need of
an authority, Divine and visible, if the life of mankind
is to grow and thrive. Now, all that exists outside
Christendom is of no account. And all that exists
outside the Catholic Church is of no authority. The
sects are nothing but an oblivion, disregard, and
contempt, of history. Therefore, the Catholic Church
is the authority I was looking for, and to her I yield.
I believe what she teaches ; I accept her Credo.” 1
But more than the faith is the life, and here again
religious minds will confess that Rome holds up an
ideal which comes to us from the New Testament
and is directly opposed to the prevailing Atheism.
This has been admirably shown in a volume of
“ Letters,” published two years ago by one, himself
not a Catholic, who was profoundly aware of the
truth so often overlooked, that all the complex
agencies, hierarchical, monastic, or devotional, which
strangers believe are parts of an ambitious secular
policy, do aim, in effect, at something very different
and are only means to a supernatural end.2 I am
1 Chauvin, Le Pere Gratry, 364.
2 See A Reported Change in Religion. By Onyx. London :
Edward Arnold.
�The Prospects of Catholicism
19
astonished, by the way, that pages so full of thought,
so genuine in their sympathy, and so penetrating as
criticism, have not attracted the attention which they
deserve. Viewing the Roman Church in a variety
of aspects, and letting its opponents speak their
unvarnished mind, the writer throws out these
pregnant suggestions, which I take to be the drift
of his reasoning. First, that “ at a certain psycho
logical point, perhaps, a man can only choose
between the Catholic Church and entire rejection
of supernatural Christianity.” Such a moment, one
would say, has arrived for the Latin races in general,
and is approaching faster than most of us think for
the intellectual and devout in these islands, and even
in America. But second, the volume reminds us
that mere historical _or philosophical objections to
Rome miss the centre of attack, for “ the Catholic
Church also reasons, but it relies for victory upon
prayer, that is to say, upon desire or will to win
souls, a desire or will multitudinous, yet disciplined
to act collectively, and skilfully directed to its end.
This is the faith which moves hearts, if not
mountains.” And third, says that one of the corre
spondents from whom we are quoting, “ It seemed
to me that the Church centred at Rome alone—far,
of course, from perfectly, but yet in some measure—
realizes the idea of a Church extending itself to all
countries, races, languages, and generations. Visible
unity seemed to me of the essence of the Christian
Church in idea, and its chief utility, so far as realized,
in practice.”1
In reply to these arguments, or enforcing them
from a slightly different point of view, it is said by
1 See A Reported Change in Religion, p. 161.
London: Edward Arnold.
By Onyx.
�20
The Prospects of Catholicism
the man to whom they are addressed, “ I find in the
Church of Rome much that satisfies my reason, a
strong deciding authority, a continuous and un
broken history, a far wider community with fellow
human beings than any other Church can offer.
. . . Like you, I think that the Catholic Church
best fulfils the great ends of religion, namely, asso
ciation and common worship on the widest scale,
continuity, assertion of the mysteries, maintenance
of the direction of the heart towards the centre.”
Bertram Bevor, who subscribes to these apologetics,
is not unacquainted with present abuses or past
scandals in the long history of Catholic ages, but he
goes on to say, “ Yet, like St. Peter, Rome has always
shown the power to return to the true order of ideas.
Like him, too, the Church of Rome has ever been
saved by her profound belief in the Divine nature of
Christ. She believes in that, and she believes in
herself, her commission, and her destiny. Alone
among Churches she claims the world as her
kingdom. All this is very impressive.”1
Surely it is so, and none the less that it strikes
upon us unbidden, at times or in situations where
the controversies of the day, their politics and per
sonalities, seem the most remote from our medita
tions ; perhaps when we look down from the sculp
tured solitudes of a great foreign cathedral like
Chartres upon a land torn with revolutions, or as we
contemplate the golden mosaics of St. Mark’s, or
listen to the fervent singing of a Catholic folk,
gathered in their thousands under the soaring spires
of Cologne.
We know for certain in such hours that the heart
1 See A Reported Change in Religion, p. 163.
London : Edward Arnold.
By Onyx.
�The Prospects of Catholicism
21
of Catholicism is Divine worship, addressed to the
Supreme in facie Christi fesu. That it is something
very ancient, sublime, affecting, and powerful to
change us for the better ; that it needs no proof but
experience, which is within reach of all, the illite
rate, the young, the outcast; and that an astonishing
harmony runs through the diversities of its opera
tion, as if one inexhaustible anodyne had been dis
covered for human ills. This, at all events, is worth
considering, that in every spiritual crisis the Catholic
Church knows what to do, has her fit principles and
methods at hand, by which to treat the malady with
decision, and without embarrassment. Her confi
dence in her own resources is unbounded, whether
she confronts a Bismarck who relies on his culture
and his edicts, or undertakes to tame and civilize
Australian blacks into such pieties as are possible for
them. She, and she alone, has sounded human
nature to the top of its compass; she knows all its
stops ; and, if we may believe our own record, she
would play on them to some divine intent. For
millions of us can say, and, indeed, are bound to say,
that from the lips of this mighty Mother we have
learned religion pure and tindefiled.
When, therefore, it is asked, “ What are the pros
pects of Catholicism ? ” we shall not ascertain them
simply by consulting parochial figures, or by casting
our lead into the residuum which is made up of lost
souls, or by taking a microscopic view of prelates
diplomatizing in the Curia, unless we will measure
the Atlantic by its froth or its weeds. A more philo
sophical method is suggested by De Tocqueville as I
find him quoted in the “ Letters ” of Onyx : “ Men
in our time are naturally little disposed to believe,
but as soon as they feel a sentiment of religion, they
�22
The Prospects of Catholicism
are. drawn by a hidden instinct towards the ancient
Church.” And the conditions of modern life tend
to raise that instinct, in many hearts, to an imperious
desire. Not only do they long after a religion which
is something else than their own fancy, but they
want the peace, the support, which will bear them
up under the daily growing burden of business and
competition. To the few, in our time, the prizes ;
to the many such a strain of anxious care as in a
campaign where no armistice ever suspends the
fighting, no, not for an hour. Pass from the street
or the workshop into a Catholic church, and you will
feel the force of that argument. It will not lose its
attraction while monopolies flourish.
To say that history, art, religion, present comfort,
and future hope, recommend the Catholic devotions,
would almost appear to be the same as affirming that
unless ideals are utterly to perish, humanity will one
day pass on into a great Roman period. If some
have left us only to give up the religious life altogether,
and are now secularist in their philosophy, the
inference for those who believe in God is that
Catholicism alone can satisfy our highest aspirations.
Countless numbers are indifferent, not because they
have rejected the faith, but because they never knew
it. What I find it impossible to suppose is that a
society which was once Christian will deliberately
choose to be <( atheist and thanatist,” to forswear
the noblest beliefs, and to acknowledge nothing
beyond its five senses. How long would any form
of Western civilization last under these conditions ?
Men and women will come back, simply because
they must, to the tradition of idealism. Not to a
dead Christ, but to a living and present Redeemer;
in other words, to a history which they can grasp
�The Prospects of Catholicism
23
with their hands, and feel with their hearts, at any
moment; which is always there when they look up
to it. This actual religion, more lively than books,
however inspired, closer to us than sermons, be they
as eloquent as Bossuet or Chrysostom—an atmosphere
which we open our lips and breathe in—is found
nowhere else than in the Catholic ritual which, be it
observed, never ceases, for its centre is the Real
Presence.
In this everlasting Sacrament, the
unknown God, if we believe, is not far from every
one of us. What, in comparison with such a gift,
are the petty discords, the obscurities in detail, and
the human miseries, which can be paralleled in every
system, but not the gift that makes them of little
account ? “ To do it justice,” said Hawthorne, in a
striking sentence, “ Catholicism is such a miracle of
fitness for its own ends, many of which might seem
to be admirable ones, that it is difficult to imagine it
a contrivance of mere man. ... If there were but
angels to work it, the- system would soon vindicate
the dignity and holiness of its origin.” 1
Yes, and since its ministers are not angels, yet its
forms, bear upon them .such tokens of the Super
natural, will the philosopher conclude that the dignity
and holiness were invented by those too inferior
demigods ? Perhaps the saddest of all sights in this
melancholy world is the mishandling, worse than
neglect, of our Catholic treasures, our ceremonies,
music, architecture, our philosophies and our devo
tions, by those who should watch over them as at
the gate of Heaven. Reformation is always called
for, now as in more scandalous times, and in no
slight degree. But whether it comes soon or late, a
growing number will say with Gerald Beechcroft, in
1 Transformation, chap, xxxviii., beginning.
�24
The Prospects of Catholicism
the volume I commend to all serious readers, “ I feel
that my true country is the Catholic Church centred
at Rome, and that all other forms of thought and
religion, however good in themselves, however good
they were then for me, and however good they are
now for others, were but resting-places on my journey
home.”
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THE CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY, LONDON.
�
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The prospects of Catholicism
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HOW TO LOOK FOR THE
TRUE CHURCH
By
the
Right Rev.. Bishop VAUGHAN
It is an exceedingly difficult, nay, an impossible thing to
form an accurate estimate of the duration of that life
which awaits us beyond the grave.
We often speak
indeed of an eternity of joy or of pain; of an eternity in
heaven or in hell.
But what is eternity?
Who can
measure it?
Who can conceive it? What image can
we draw of it? What figures will serve to express it?
The more we think of it the more the difficulty grows;
the more strenuous the efforts we make to grasp it, the
more completely it escapes from our view, the more
completely it eludes us. We have no means of taking
the soundings of that unfathomable sea, or of measuring
its limitless length.
We may exhaust all numbers; we
may call to our aid every symbol and figure, but we can
approach no step nearer to the solution of the difficulty
than when we started.
For it is impossible to measure
the measureless, or to fathom the unfathomable.
Not
merely historic time, but all cosmic and astronomic time
is swallowed up in it. The process of star-building; the
formation of suns and planets; the gradual unfolding of
new constellations and systems, occupying hundreds of
millions of years, and aeons of ages; are but as tiny drops
in the bottomless ocean of eternity.
Yet our eternity depends wholly and entirely upon the
present moment—upon the passing hour—which we call
life. What each individual shall be; whether happy or
miserable throughout the limitless durations of the future,
must be determined practically by himself, and by no
other.
Heaven and hell are quivering in the balance.
“Life and death are before him, that which he chooses,
�2
How to look for the True Church
he shall have.”
Now, can we conceive anything more
important, or of greater concern and interest, than to secure
eternal happiness; and to secure it at any price ? Is there
any possible subject that so presses for a practical and
immediate solution as the question—“Am I on the right
path?” “Does the road I am following lead to eternal
life, or is it conducting me to everlasting death?”
That multitudes miss their way and are lost irrecover
ably, is not only probable, but is absolutely certain, for
“many are called but few are chosen.” And the same
appalling fate may overtake any one of us, should we
grow careless or indifferent.
The importance of following the right path is so great
that Christ did not hesitate to come down upon earth, in
human form, to point it out Himself. He made known
the way. In the plenitude of His divine power He laid
down the conditions, and stated precisely on what terms
we were to receive the promise of eternal happiness with
Himself.
He established a Church, a living organism, which was
to remain for ever and to teach us all necessary truths.
Observe, I say to teach, not to discuss, not to dispute,
not to argue, but to teach; to teach dogmatically, authori
tatively; by His express command, and in His name;
“ Who heareth you, heareth Me.” In fact, in view of the
absolute importance of the subject, He determined to
teach us Himself, if not always directly and with His own
lips, at least in and through His Church, as through a
divinely constituted channel; remaining with her always
for that specific purpose. “Behold I am with you all
days, even unto the consummation of the world.”
This Church was commanded to teach the truths He
had enunciated and laid down, just these and no others.
She was ordered to teach all nations, and all persons
were made de jure her subjects; and everyone so addressed
was bound to listen, to accept, and to obey. “Go and
teach all nations, and whosoever believeth and is baptized,
shall be saved; and”—note well the words that follow—
“whosoever believeth not shall be condemned.”
Eternal life, then, is here made dependent upon believing
what is taught—believing Christ’s message, and, of course,
putting it into practice.
But now comes the crucial
point. What is Christ’s message, and who is Christ’s
messenger ? Who is he that holds the divine commis-
�How to look for the True Church
3
sion ? It will never do to accept the first person that
chances to present himself. It will not save us to listen
to Wesley, or to the Archbishop of Canterbury, or to
General Booth, or to any man however great and good,
unless he be in very truth the duly appointed and properly
accredited messenger of God, and is really teaching all
that Christ taught, and nothing that He did not teach.
And mark, on the due acceptance of the message our
very salvation depends.
Again, therefore, we ask: Who
is Christ’s messenger? Which of the many claimants,
ancient and modern, old and young, is the true one? It
is undoubtedly a matter of supreme importance to deter
mine which of the many claimants is the one who has
been entrusted with so solemn and so tremendous a re
sponsibility.
Is this difficult? I must make a distinction. It is
perfectly easy if only we will start by removing the ob
stacles ; but it is impossible if we deliberately allow these
obstacles to remain and blind our mental vision.
My purpose in this paper is to point out some of the
chief obstacles; and to clear the ground, as it were, in
preparation for a more complete and fundamental exam
ination.
(a) One of the chief obstacles to a fair and impartial
examination arises from prejudice and bias.
Men set
out on their journey of enquiry with minds full of sus
picion, mistrust, and dislike.
They have, from their
earliest infancy, breathed an atmosphere of hostility to
the Catholic Church. She has been the bogey and the
bete noire of their whole lives.
The whole current of
opinion in which they move is antagonistic to the Church
of Rome. Few can realize the influence of education, and
the incalculable power over the mind of hostile opinions,
imbibed from infancy through every pore and never
contradicted.
Consider the English language in which
a man learns both to think and to express his thoughts.
“For three hundred years and more that tongue has been
one vast engine of ceaseless attack upon the Catholic
Church: its literature is saturated with a spirit of the
most deadly antagonism to that Church, not in the de
partment of theology only, but in the departments of
history, and poetry, and travels, and fiction—aye, and the
very primers in the hands of the little children. If such
be the character of the fountain, what effect may not be
�4
How to look for the True Church
anticipated in those who all their lives long drink of its
poisonous streams?”
This is the question asked by
James Stone, himself a convert from Protestantism, in
his book The Invitation Heeded (p. 25).
It has been said that love is blind : whether this be
so or not, it is quite certain that hate is blind.
The
hatred and preconceived suspicions of the Jews so blinded
their judgement that they could not see the holiness and
truthfulness even of Christ. And if men failed to recognize
the conspicuous virtues even of God Incarnate, and perse
cuted Him to the end; can we wonder if they fail in the
same way to see the beauty and sanctity and truth of the
Bride of Christ, the Church? Hatred and malevolence
and dislike blind and deceive us; and, unless we are
careful, will deceive us to the end, to our irreparable loss 1
We must begin by laying aside prejudice and hate.
(b) Another difficulty arises from the fact that many
Protestants not only fail to realize the beauty of the
Catholic Church, but they have never had it set before
them.
What they have contemplated all their lives long
is not the Church, but mere caricatures designed by its
enemies. They look at it not in itself, but through the
eyes of its bitterest foes and opponents—hence, through
a distorted medium.
You may have noticed the twisted mirrors sometimes
hung up and exhibited in fairs and places of amusement.
It is quite true that they do indeed reflect the person
standing before them—after a fashion. But the image
is distorted, misshapen, hideous, disproportioned.
The
most exquisite of all beauties would be represented as
utterly repulsive by such mirrors.
The beauty of the
Catholic Church suffers a similar treatment at the hands
of unscrupulous men. They do not afford an inquirer • a
fair opportunity of judging, since what they present and
label “the Catholic Church” is not the Church at all, but
a hideous and revolting caricature of it. For instance, to
take somewhat extreme cases. They would persuade men
that Catholics pay for the forgiveness of their sins; that
they show greater honour to the Blessed Virgin than
to Christ; that they call the Pope, God. In these and
hundreds of other ways they distort her fair proportions,
and strive, often but too successfully, to belittle her in the
eyes of those who, did they but see her as she is, would at
once place themselves under instruction.
�How to look for the True Chztrch
5
We have a "good and up-to-date example in an article
written by Miss Lilian C. Morant in the Nineteenth Century
(December, 1900, p. 824). A more ridiculous travesty of
truth it would be hard to discover. We expect vulgar
abuse in such papers as The Rock, etc.; but that a magazine
with the reputation of the Nineteenth Century should lend
itself to such methods is, indeed, more than we should have
expected.
Miss Morant calmly writes that Leo XIII. “ has bestowed
upon Josef Mayer a pardon, not only for all his own sins,
past and present and future, but also, with a truly lavish gene
rosity, for those of all his children.” Having elaborated this
extraordinary scarecrow from the recesses of her own fertile
imagination, she then, of course, proceeds to expatiate on
the awful consequences of “ being nourished at the bosom
of the Roman Church.” That is to say, she bedaubs the
fair face of the Bride of Christ with dirt and filth, clothes
her in repulsive garments of her own manufacture, and then
turns round and invites the world to spurn and despise
so pitiable an object. Had she been less in a hurry to
belittle and to damage the Church, she might have sought
instruction of the first Catholic schoolboy and been saved
from such folly. So much for her statement. Every school
boy knows the Pope has no more power to forgive sin,
outside of the Sacrament of Penance, than anyone reading
this tract. Every child that learns its catechism is aware
that neither the Pope nor any other Bishop or Priest can
exercise any absolving power over sins not yet committed.
Miss Morant is, in reality, referring to a well-recognized
form of indulgence. Now an indulgence has nothing what
ever to do with sin itself, it does not touch sin properly so
called; sin is not even the subject-matter of an indulgence.
An indulgence cannot begin to operate at all until the guilt
of sin has ceased to exist—i.e., until it has been removed. It
affects only the penalty of sin, the punishment due to sin;
and even then it remains wholly inoperative until the sin
itself has been forgiven. Misrepresentations such as this
are difficulties and obstacles.
(c) Other obstacles arise from the sense of fear. Some
pusillanimous men are restrained and held back from
making a free and earnest inquiry lest they should be
convinced of the truth of Catholicity, and obliged to
acknowledge that it is the Church of God. Why afraid ?
Because Protestantism is so much easier, and demands so
�6
How to look for the True Church
much less from them. As Protestants, men enjoy more
liberty, more independence.
To enter into the Catholic Church is, no doubt, as
converts find out, to enter into the narrow way. There are
fasts and abstinences—not marked idly in the prayer-book,
but to be really observed—and there is confession •—
self-accusation, not to God only, but to His representative
also, to a fellow-man. And then there is the strict obliga
tion to hear mass on Sundays and on certain week-days
The “ broad way ” of greater freedom and less
also.
restraint is so much more comfortable! That may be
quite true; the drawback is, that the broad way leads to
destruction, and the narrow way to eternal life. “Strive,”
says Christ, “to enter by the narrow gate.”
(d) Then there are fears and anxieties of another kind
that also stop people. They ask: “ What will the world
say; what will all my friends think and do ? If I become
a Catholic, it will alienate my nearest and dearest.” To
these difficulties may be added personal loss—the losing
of a lucrative position; the giving up of a valuable post ;
the facing comparative poverty. It is not everyone who
has the courage and magnanimity to sell all, and to be
stript of all, so as to secure even the pearl of great price—
the Truth revealed by Christ. I remember how a certain
lady of high rank having been received into the Church,
her friends came to her and said that she really ought not
to allow her daughter to become a Catholic—and why?
Because it would interfere with and blight her matrimonial
chances. They put the temporal before the eternal.
That the Catholic Church is the True Church established
by Christ is a statement which rests upon the most certain
and positive grounds. But my purpose now is to deal
simply with the probabilities of the question; to point out
certain undeniable facts of history, and to ask what impres
sion these facts are calculated to produce on any honest,
dispassionate, and open mind.
(a) The first question it occurs to me to ask is: Is it
likely that a Church, such as the Catholic Church, which
can trace its origin back, century after century, through
a long line of Popes, from Leo and Pius IX. to Peter and
Christ Himself, should be wrong—and that the Church of
England, or any other Protestant Church, which had no
existence till the sixteenth century, should be right.
�How to look for the True Church
7
Is it probable that the Church which was contemporary
with Christ; which was one with the Apostles; which was,
so to speak, nearest to the source and fountain of all
inspiration, should be wrong and mistaken and in error;
and that Churches separated from this source by over
fifteen hundred years should possess the truth ? Or, to put
it in another form—Are Churches which started into life a
thousand and more years after the time of Christ, more
likely to be the Churches of Christ than the Church which
has come down in unbroken succession from Him ?
Which is more
(b) Take England itself.
likely to be the true religion—that religion which was
brought into England by missionaries from Rome, sent
directly by Pope Gregory himself, a religion which grad
ually penetrated throughout the whole country, and won
the hearts of the whole English people; that religion
which was openly professed and acknowledged for over a
thousand years; that religion which laid the foundations of
her greatness, which established her glorious constitution,
her form of government, that founded her most famous
universities, and built up her most magnificent cathedrals
and abbeys? Is that more probably the true religion of
Christ, or the religion introduced in the sixteenth century
—the Anglican religion that has existed but a paltry three
or four hundred years, and which has broken up and
divided into hundreds of different sects; which is not
united even within its own narrow borders? Whoever
heard of High or Low, or Broad or Narrow, as applied to the
Church before the sixteenth century ?
(c) It would likewise seem to the ordinary intelligent
inquirer that the faith which was professed by the whole of
Christian Europe for over a thousand years must have been
the true faith, as it was then the only form of Christianity.
There was then no other. Or shall we adopt the somewhat
blasphemous opinion that, though right at first, it afterwards
went wrong; erred from the right path ? But this cuts the
ground from under our feet; for on such an hypothesis
what becomes of the promise of Christ ? Are we to believe
that He cannot keep His word ? “ Heaven and earth shall
pass away, but My words shall never pass away.” He
promises that the gates of hell, i.e., of error, shall never
prevail; that He will abide with His Church Himself for
ever; that His Holy Spirit will guard it from all error, and
bring to mind all He had taught. Is it likely, nay, is it
�8
How to look for the True Church
conceivable, that His promises should all be thus broken
and shattered, and that His Church should have so fallen
and corrupted and sunk into error, that the services of
Henry VIII. and Martin Luther, and others of a like
character, were required to drag her out of the mire, to
cleanse and purify her, and “wash her face”? This is
what Protestants affirm. Listen to these words from the
Homilies of the Church of England. The Homily states
that “not only the unlearned and simple, but the learned
and wise; not the people only, but the bishops; not the
sheep, but the shepherds themselves .... fell into the
pit of damnable idolatry, in the which all the world, as it
were drowned, continued until our age [/.<?., the Reforma
tion] by the space of about eight hundred years.” To
say so is to deny our Lord’s own words, and sounds very
much like blasphemy.
(d) We may further put it to the impartial inquirer:
Does the life and character and moral worth of the
Reformers, of those who first introduced Protestantism,
render it probable that they were come to purify the
Church—they, whose mere touch was defilement ? Catho
licism was introduced into England by modest, humble,
peaceful monks, bereft of all worldly power and physical
force—men whose lives were austere, and who practised
self-denial, poverty, obedience, chastity, etc., and won men
by the beauty and sanctity of their whole character.
But who introduced Protestantism ? What were the
so-called Reformers like ? Consider Henry VIII. who first
caused the breach with Rome. What was the source of
the quarrel? What caused the breach? Just this: that
being a duly married man, he wished to repudiate his
own wife, and marry another younger and more attractive
woman. The plain facts of history are these: the English
King wanted to break the law of God, and the Pope wanted
him to keep it. That was the little spark whence came
the great fire.
William Cobbett, Protestant writer, speaking of his death,
refers to Henry VIII. in these words : “ Thus expired, in
*547) . the most unjust, hard-hearted, meanest, and most
sanguinary tyrant that the world had ever beheld, whether
Christian or heathen.” Is it probable that the Church of
which he was the first supreme ruler, and, indeed, the
founder and father, is the Church of Christ?
(e) Again, had the Reformers nothing to gain ? Were
�How to look for the True Church
9
they actuated by pure zeal, the glory of God, and other
disinterested motives?
They included men who had broken their vows, thrown
up their most sacred obligations, and who were unprin
cipled, immoral, proud, contentious, cruel, and unjust.
The thirst for gold and treasure set them on. The altars,
shrines, tombs, chapels, churches, monasteries, and cathedrals
were stripped to fill their pockets. The silver and gold
plate, the precious vases, the jewels and precious stones,
all were swallowed by these ravening wolves.
Even
Henry VIII. himself was at last disgusted at the rapacity
of his followers who sought their share of the spoils of the
desecrated altars, shrines, and monasteries. When com
plaining to Cromwell he burst out into anger, exclaiming :
“ By Our Lady! the cormorants, when they have got the
garbage, will they devour the dish?” In this way they
sought to wash the face of the Church in England.
(f) Further; the mode in which they sought to impose
their novel doctrines is in keeping with the rest. They
were not satisfied with teaching, expounding, arguing, ex
horting. They knew they could never turn white into
black by mere talking. Nor were they satisfied to confine
themselves to the writing of tracts and treatises, and attacks
and lampoons, though there were plenty of those too. Their
arguments were of altogether another kind. They argued
with the Church in this country exactly as the Jews argued
with the glorious St. Stephen, the deacon, in the first dawn
of Christianity. When they could not answer him, they
took up stones and stoned him to death. Similarly the
Reformers, knowing the position of the Catholic Church to
be unassailable, they made use of physical force. Their
arguments were fire and sword, fines, dungeons, and the
hangman’s rope; disembowellings and quarterings, and
other refinements of diabolical cruelty and injustice, that
make one’s blood run cold even to read of—and this by a
Church professing liberty of conscience, and the right of
each to exercise his private judgement. Which is more
likely to be the true Church—a Church introduced by
holy, mortified men inured to hardship and to penance by
their rule, and following the manner of Christ; or a Church
forced upon men under a threat of an agonizing death by
the greatest set of rascals that ever lived ?
It is no answer to say that Catholic governments have
also at times forgotten the suavity of their Divine Founder,
�io
How to look for the True Church
and inflicted physical pain and death. For I am compar
ing the manner in which Catholicity and Protestantism
have been respectively introduced, and the methods by
which they respectively took possession of the English
nation. Yes; compare the founder of Protestantism with
the Founder of Catholicism, and then judge.
Let us now turn to the Holy Scriptures.
Which is most likely to be the true Church,—the Church
that has ever watched over, preserved, and safeguarded the
Bible, and that has defined and declared exactly of what
books and what writings it consists—that is to say, the
•Catholic Church—or the Church which has been obliged
to apply for it and to receive it from the hands of the
Catholic Church'?
Neither the Anglican nor any other Protestant Church
would have it at all, had it not been copied, and guarded,
and treasured up, and carefully handed down during many
hundred years till they came into existence. Is the Pro
testant system of treating it, or the Catholic more likely to
be the right one ? The Catholic Church says, “ That is my
book; I understand it; I know its meaning; I am its
divinely-appointed interpreter. Read it, study it; but if
your interpretation does not harmonize with mine, know
that you are wrong, you have misunderstood.” Such an
attitude is quite consonant with a Church which has
been told to “ Go and teach,” and which men have been
ordered to hear. But the principle of private judgement
does away with the very need of a Church, and uses the
Bible against the Church. The Protestant system is to
leave each man to read and interpret for himself. He is
not taught by any authority. He is his own master. He
finds what meaning be fancies, or what his ignorance may
suggest? and there is no “hearing the Church.” There is
hearing only his own fallible reason. What is the con
sequence ? The authority of the Scriptures is belittled,
scouted, and openly denied; for hundreds of irreconcilable
sects all prove from Scripture (to their own satisfaction, at
least) their own particular and pet doctrines, which causes
many of the more thoughtful to reject the Bible altogether.
Which of these two systems of treating the Bible is the more
reasonable, the more respectful to God’s written word, and
which is probably the true one ?
Again: which Church is most guided and influenced by
�How to look for the True Church
11
the Scriptures ? Where are its enactments most fully carried
out ? We ask, because the Church which more nearly
obeys and listens to the Scriptures, is more likely to be
the Church of Christ than any other. We will select a
few instances:—
Take the words: “ Whose sins you shall forgive, they are
forgiven; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.”
These words, pronounced by our Lord Himself, clearly
indicate both the power of absolving from sin, and also the
power of withholding forgiveness. Where is this power so
fully acknowledged, and accepted and applied as in the
Catholic Church ? Again, take the following passage from
the prophecy of the Prophet Malachias : 11 From the rising
of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among
the Gentiles (to the Jews all who were not of their own race
were ‘ Gentiles ’), and in every place there is sacrifice, and
there is offered to my name a clean oblation; for my name is
great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of Hosts” (i. n).
What is this 11 clean oblation ” ? It is the precious Body
and Blood of Christ in the Eucharistic sacrifice,—it is the
Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. What is there in the Protes
tant Church that can be taken as the fulfilment of this pro
phecy ? What is the “ sacrifice ” and the “ clean oblation ”
offered by Protestantism to the name of God from the
rising of the sun to the going down? In the Catholic
Church the accomplishment of the prophecy is clear, patent,
manifest; but how can the words be made to fit the case of
those with whom the mass is a “ blasphemous fable ” ?
A similar argument may be based upon a number of
other texts. In the fifth chapter of his Epistle, the Apostle
St. James clearly describes the sacrament of Extreme Unction.
“ Is any man sick amongst you ? Let him bring in the
priests of the Church and let them (a) pray over him,
(p) anointing him with oil (c) in the name of the Lord.”
Now, what are the effects? So far, we have the outward
signs; but what are the inward graces ? The Apostle tells
us : “ And the prayer of faith shall save the sick man; and
the Lord shall raise him up; and if he be in sins they shall
be forgiven him” (v. 14, 15). It is a ceremony to which is
attached certain inward graces—“ his sins shall be forgiven.”
Who possesses this Sacrament at the present day ? Who
is there that enters into the room of the dying and regularly
and systematically “anoints with oil” those who are in
danger of death ? Is it the Protestant Church? No! It
�12
How to look for the True Church
is the old Catholic and Apostolic Church which is still the
greatest and grandest power in the world. The Anglican
Church acknowledges but two sacraments out of the seven.
She attaches no importance to Extreme Unction.
It is
the Catholic Church which has her special ritual for this
Sacrament, and which insists on it being always adminis
tered in case of grave illness; and which orders her
ministers, even with considerable danger to themselves,
through contagion, to give it to the dying: and which pays
real attention to the inspired words of the Apostle. Put
the question to any Protestant Church. .Ask if Extreme
Unction is a true “Sacrament” with them; and you will
find it is not.
Take another text of a somewhat different kind. Our
Lord commanded His disciples—in a word, His Church
—to go and teach, or, as the original has it, to “make
disciples of all nations.”
“Go and teach all nations.”
What Church most truly carries out this command ?
Who has been teaching the world from the beginning ?
What Church was it that converted and “ made disciples ”
of England itself and won her from Paganism ? What
Church converted Ireland, Scotland, France, Italy,
Germany, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Spain and Portugal?
Was it our neighbour the Anglican Church?
Was it
any one of the Protestant Churches ? It was no other
than the Catholic Church. If a Protestant race or nation
or country exist to-day, it is one converted originally
from Paganism to Catholicity \ it is one that was, in the
first instance, converted by Catholic missionaries, but
which afterwards sunk and settled down to the lower
and more human level of comfortable Protestantism; and
has thrown off the more difficult practices of religion,
such as confession, fasting, submission to an infallible
authority, and so forth. The question may well be put:
Has the Protestant Church, whether Anglican, Lutheran, or
any other, carried out the command to teach all nations ?
If not, it is simply not the Church addressed by Christ.
Has it since its first rise in the sixteenth century, converted
so much as one country or one nation from Paganism to
Protestantism ? If it has not, then how can it be the
Church, of Christ; for the Church is especially charged
with this duty, and entrusted with this office? On the
other hand, if it has converted even so much as one nation
from infidelity, I should very much like to know which it is.
�How to look for the True Church
13
I wish now to call attention to another fact which seems
to point to the Catholic Church being the true one—and
that regards, firstly, the kind of persons who are attracted
towards the Church, and, secondly, the kind of persons who
find themselves much better out of it. We notice that a
large number of persons are seized with admiration for the
old Faith; that thousands put themselves under instruction
every year, even in England alone. On the other hand,
there are some,—exceedingly few, I am glad to say, still
there are some we hear of from time to time, who leave
the fold of the Catholic Church to become Anglicans,
Unitarians, Agnostics, and what not.
Now what do we notice when comparing the one set
of persons with the other ? The Protestant who becomes
a Catholic, as almost an universal rule, has nothing what
ever to gain by it, from a temporal point of view. On the
contrary, he generally has a great deal to suffer. He has
to withstand the full current of popular opinion, which is
set dead against the Church in this country. He has to
act with the full knowledge that he will wound and offend
and alienate his best friends, who will look daggers at him,
treat him with coldness, and often throw him off altogether,
as though he were a spiritual leper. Frequently his own
family practically disown him, .and treat him with the
greatest harshness and cruelty. Husbands will thrust their
wives, and fathers their daughters out of doors, for daring
to exercise their private judgement, when that judgement
leads them to what they call Popery.
In the case of clergymen, it happens again and again,
that to become a Catholic means to lose not only their
best friends, and the love and admiration of their con
gregations, but it means to throw up a fat living, and to
face poverty, want, and the loss of all the comforts and
elegancies of life. They are either married or not married,
but in both cases they suffer. If married, they are gener
ally obliged to take to some secular profession, for which
neither their training nor their inclination has, in the least
degree, fitted them; and to see their wives and children
come down in the world, and perhaps forced to take situa
tions as governesses, or even to go into service. If, on
the other hand, they be unmarried, and wish to enter the
Catholic ministry, then they have practically to go to
school again, to humble themselves and begin their course
of philosophy and theology anew; to unlearn a great deal
�14
How to look for the True Church
they once learned, and perhaps to sit among young students
half their age, and with half their knowledge and experi
ence. In fact, so great and so many are the difficulties
and the hardships they have to contend with, that no one
can well doubt their sincerity, their purity of intention, and
the disinterestedness of their motives.
It is far indeed from being the refuse and the scum of
Protestantism that drift, like flotsam and jetsam, into the
Catholic Church. Quite the opposite. It is the nobler,
better, and more generously minded, who are ready to
sell all they possess in order to purchase the pearl of
great price, the Divine Truth as taught by Christ. Their
mental as well as their moral qualities are not unfrequently
made manifest by the position to which many of their
number attain within the Catholic Church. We might
instance such persons as Cardinal Manning, Cardinal
Newman, and many more, whose noble lives and self
sacrificing conduct sufficiently betoken the stuff of which
they were made.
Contrast these with such as leave the Catholic Church,
to become members of the Anglican, or other sects.
These have everything to gain from a worldly point of view.
Consider a Catholic priest who joins a Protestant com
munity. We know cases, in which he has left the Church
because his drunken and dissolute life was rendering his
position intolerable, and because suspension, disgrace, and
serious ecclesiastical penalties were actually hanging over
his head, and seemed imminent. Or he found the restraints
of his office grow irksome; the long hours in the con
fessional; the tiresome sick calls at night; the inevitable
daily reading of the divine office; the restrictions of Lent
and Advent; the prohibitions regarding theatres, operas,
balls, and other amusements, and a thousand other curtail
ments of liberty, all became tiresome, annoying, and dis
tressing. True. Now, by becoming a Protestant all these
restraints would be removed.
Besides, as a priest he is bound to the celibate life.
When a man loses his fervour, and grows cold in the
service of God, and thinks of self rather than others, he
begins to crave for a wife. Priests of the Catholic Church
cannot enter into the marriage state. They are not allowed
even to aspire to the ecclesiastical career, unless they are
willing to bind themselves by vow to live a celibate fife.
But the Protestant Church opens out its arms to them;
�How to look for the True Church
i5
promises them full freedom to marry whomsoever they like.
Thus it happens that here or there a poor, worldly-minded,
comfort-seeking, cowardly, weak, and sensuous priest yields
to the attraction, apostatizes and goes through the form of
marriage. This is so well known, so universally recognized
in the Church, that it is always expected as the next step
after apostasy; and the expectation is very rarely falsified,
though naturally marriage is not the excuse alleged.
I might give examples of what I have said, but I forbear.
It is enough to ask men to consider for themselves the kind
of persons whom the Catholic Church receives into her
bosom, and the kind of persons who go out from her. It
will convey a very salutary lesson.
Now we will pass to another class of persons, whose
judgement, it seems, may very safely be relied upon, and
accepted.
I mean the sick and the dying. When a man
becomes fully conscious that death is at hand; when he
realizes that the world is receding, and that the end is near;
whatever else he may be, he is generally sincere.
The
influences of the world, the favour or disfavour of men,
are not considerations that weigh upon him. The purely
temporal advantages or disadvantages of one line of con
duct over another lose all their power to sway his judgement
He already sees, in imagination, the judgement seat of God,
and the Judge who will judge him with perfect impartiality:
a Judge who is inflexible and omniscient, and who will pass
sentence upon every man according to his works.
He
knows that in a few days, perhaps a few hours, he will be in
eternity, and face to face with One who can neither deceive
nor be deceived.
If ever in his life a man is sincere,
honest, and anxious to do what he considers to be to his
own safety and advantage, it is then. He is fully aware
that heaven or hell must be his eternal portion, and that
much depends—I may say that everything depends—upon
his dispositions, and upon the sincerity of his desire to
satisfy and please God.
Consequently, what a man will
do under those circumstances will probably be wisely and
sincerely done. Now what do we find? Well; we find
scores and scores of non-Catholics asking to be received
into the Catholic Church in times of sickness, disease,
epidemic, and danger, and above all on their deathbeds.
Again and again do we hear of people calling and begging
for a Catholic priest to baptize them, and hear their con
fession, and administer the last rites
�i6
How to look for the True Church
Who, on the other hand, ever heard of a practising
Catholic, or indeed of any kind of Catholic, asking to be
received into the Protestant Church on his deathbed? I
have never once heard, or seen, or read of such a thing.
Nor can I conceive it as possible.
I believe such an
experience is wholly, unknown and unrecorded.
No
instance, so far as I can discover, has ever even been alleged.
Is there, I wonder, so much as one authenticated case on
record ?
To me this is, I will not say a proof, for I am not now
dealing with proofs, but a most striking sign and symptom
of the truth of the Catholic religion. It speaks volumes to
anyone who can look upon the matter dispassionately.
How can it be explained? I know not any explanation
but one, and it is that the Catholic faith is the true one.
When does a man judge best?
When are his convic
tions most reliable ? Surely it is when two conditions are
realized—viz., when he is (firstly) most intensely and acutely
in earnest; and (secondly) when he is acting under super
natural and spiritual motives only—untouched by any
worldly, earthly, and mundane considerations. When is
this ? It is, above all, when he lies at the point of death.
I will end by quoting the testimony of Dr. Oliver Wendell
Holmes on the peace and confidence of Catholic deaths.
This doctor, who was a member of the Emersonian school
of Transcendentalists, writes: “I have seen a good many
Roman Catholics on their deathbeds, and it has always
appeared to me that they accepted the inevitable with a
composure which showed that their belief, whether or not
the best to live by, was a better one to die by than most of
the creeds which have replaced it” (Over the Teacups,
pp. 250, ed. 1894).
Printed and
published by the catholic truth society,
69 SOUTHWARK BRIDGE ROAD, LONDON, S.E.
N.—July 1912.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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How to look for the true church
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Vaughan, John Stephen
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Annotations in pencil p. 7.
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Catholic Truth Society
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[1912]
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RA1536
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Catholic Church
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br />This work (How to look for the true church), identified by <span><a href="www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.
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English
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Catholic Church-Apologetic Works
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THE TRUE CHURCH OF
JESUS CHRIST
By P. M. Northcote
It would be useless to speak about the Church of
Jesus Christ to those who do not believe in Him.
To such as these I do not address myself. I will,
however, place before them a few considerations
worthy of their careful attention. They will, I pre
sume, scarcely doubt His existence as an historical
personage, for, apart from the records we have of Him,
surely as weighty and worthy of credence as those
which testify to the life character and doings of any
one else in history, it is, moreover, an unquestionable
fact that He has exercised and still exercises upon
the world an influence absolutely without parallel. It
is quite impossible that such a gigantic superstructure
should be based upon a myth. Let it be granted,
then, that close upon two thousand years ago there
was born in Judea a man of Hebrew race' who lived
a short life, exhibiting characteristics quite unique,
characteristics so imposingly grand and beautiful
that He has extorted the admiration even of those
most hostile to His claims. He spent His life for
others, and for their sakes finally suffered a most
agonizing and shameful death. What brought Him
to death was His unfaltering assertion that He was
'God Incarnate. Moreover, it is to be noted that the
long series of the prophets of His nation had foretold
that God should come upon earth in human guise,
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The True Church of Jesus Christ
and these prophecies, types, and figures tally most
minutely with all that is related of this wonderful
being: the time of His arrival upon earth, His birth
of a Virgin, the poverty and obscurity of His early
years, His life of beneficent toil, the manner of His
painful death, His Resurrection and Ascension into
heaven—all are foreshown with an astonishing ex
actness. Furthermore, He wrought mighty miracles,
and pointed to them as evidences of the truth of
what He taught about Himself and His mission upon
earth. There are those who in the name of science
airily assert that miracles are impossible. Now, no
fact is impossible, and miracles are facts as well
attested as any other facts of history. It is the
province of the inductive sciences to interpret facts:
nothing is more silly and unscientific than to brush
aside facts which stand in the way of a cherished
preconception. In addition to His miracles we have
His own foreknowledge of future events, whether
concerning Himself or whether concerning the society
instituted by Him, and the course of the world’s
history until the end of time. His predictions of
what would happen to Himself were all fulfilled as
recorded in the Gospel narration. His predictions
of events affecting posterity have been verified one by
one: the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple,
the spread of His religion, the persecutions His
followers should suffer, all these things have come to
pass, and we are thereby justified in believing that all
His other prophecies will be realized in process of
time.
There are these and many other such proofs which
fully bear out the reasonableness of our faith that the
Son of Mary is also the Son of God.
If, then, Christ be the Son of God, it follows that
all He said must be incontestably true, and that all
His commands must be willingly obeyed. To secure
the salvation which He has wrought out for us, He
imposes the obligation that we should believe all that
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He taught and observe all that He commanded
(Mark xvi. 16, Matt, xxviii. 20). This involves two
things, right faith and right conduct, than which two
things nothing could be more important, for upon
them depends our eternal salvation. Once we realize
this we infer that He could not have made issues of
such tremendous import to ourselves depend upon
right faith and right conduct unless He had also
given to us a means whereby we may know with an
infallible certainty what we are to believe and what
we are to do. We are not disappointed in this
inference, for we find it recorded that He has founded
a society to which He promises Divine assistance that
it may never lose that precious treasure of heaven
sent knowledge, nor ever err in its interpretation of
the teaching He imparted to it.
Which, then, is this society founded by Jesus Christ ?
Certainly not all the Christian bodies taken collec
tively, for nothing is more evident than their complete
discord as to what Christ really taught. We must
search, therefore, amongst them and find out one
society which corresponds with the society which He
speaks of as His Kingdom and His Church. In fine,
there is laid upon us the obligation under most awful
responsibility of searching for and entering into the
True Church of Jesus Christ.
I will, therefore, endeavour as briefly and plainly as
possible to point out certain indications whereby we
may know which of all the Christian denominations
is the Church founded by the Saviour of mankind.
In so doing I shall appeal to no authority except
the words of our Lord Himself and of His duly
accredited spokesmen, the Apostles.
(A) The True Church of Jesus Christ must be
a proselytizing Church.
Matt. xxiv. 14: “ And this Gospel of the kingdom
shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony
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The True Church of Jesus Christ
to all nations.” Mark xvi. 15-16: “Go ye into the
whole world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but
he that believeth not shall be condemned.” Luke
x. 16: “He that heareth you heareth Me; and he
that despiseth you despiseth Me ; and he that
despiseth Me despiseth Him that sent Me.”
There is a strong tendency nowadays to deprecate
anything like proselytizing, not only amongst the
Christian bodies themselves, but even as regards
Christianity in relation to other religions. Very
many people are disposed to say, let us live and let
live. One hears it spoken of as matter for com
mendation that such and such a Christian body is
non-proselytizing. This may suit the fashion of the
modern mind very well. If, however, we consult
such texts as those just quoted, one thing is quite
certain, namely, that a form of Christianity which is
non-proselytizing is not the Church founded by Jesus
Christ.
(B) The True Church of Jesus Christ must
be intolerant.
Matt. x. 14-15 : “ And whosoever shall not receive
you, nor hear your words .... going forth out of that
house or city shake off the dust from your feet.
Amen, I say to you, it shall be more tolerable for
the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of
judgement, than for that city.”
Matt, xviii. 17-18: “And if he will not hear the
Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and the
publican. Amen, I say to you, whatsoever you shall
bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven ; and
whatsoever you shall loose upon earth shall be loosed
also in heaven.”
Gal. i. 8-9: “ But though we, or an angel from
heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we
have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we
said before, so now I say again : if anyone preach to
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you a gospel, besides that which you have received,
let him be anathema.”
Titus iii. io-i I : “ A man that is a heretic, after the
first and second admonition, avoid : knowing that he
that is such an one, is subverted, and sinneth, being
condemned by his own judgement.”
2 Peter ii. i : “ But there were also false prophets
among the people, even as there shall be among you
lying teachers, who shall bring in sects of perdition,
and deny the Lord who bought them ; bringing upon
themselves swift destruction.”
2 John io: “If any man come to you, and bring
not this doctrine, receive him not into the house, nor
say to him, God speed you.”
Ap. ii. 6 : “ But this thou hast, that thou hatest the
deeds of the Nicolaites, which I also hate.”
In speaking here of intolerance, it must be under
stood that I mean spiritual intolerance; I am not in
any way referring to the use of physical force for the
propagation or maintenance of religion. We are
beings compounded of soul and body, consequently
there is in us a rather natural tendency to translate
intellectual antagonisms to the physical plane, just
as we see that political opponents will sometimes
go from words to blows. As regards religion, it is
certainly quite contrary to the teaching of Jesus
Christ and the spirit of His religion to propagate
Christianity by force. How far it may be lawful
as an act of self-protection in order to maintain true
religion once firmly planted in a nation by the use
of the secular arm is a very difficult question to
settle. It is very often thrown in the teeth of
Catholics that in times past their Church endeavoured
to crush out nascent heresies by coercive measures.
But it is notorious that those Christian bodies the
members of which are most ready to upbraid the
Catholic Church on this head, themselves achieved
ascendancy by an unsparing use of the sword, the
gibbet, and the rack. Every Christian body in its-
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The Trite Church of Jesus Christ
day of power has to a greater or less degree used
force to maintain its position, but we have only got
to look at the history of our country to be aware that
some forms of Christianity not only maintained
themselves when once established by a resort to
coercive measures, but actually ascended to power
by methods of propaganda which savour rather of
Mahomet than of Christ.
But to speak of spiritual intolerance, it is evident
that this is a necessary feature of the true Church
of Jesus Christ. He said that His word should
not pass away (Matt. xxiv. 35); it is a revelation
from God, and by consequence cannot tolerate any
contradiction. The society to which He committed
its conservation must be jealous of it as it must be
jealous of God’s honour. We must look, then, for
a Church which claims that she is the sole depository
of revealed truth, the only way of salvation ; which
will not associate in worship with any other religious
body; which holds itself exclusive and aloof; which
endeavours as far as possible to withdraw its members
from association with persons belonging to other
sects and religions; which deprecates mixed marri
ages ; which forbids the perusal of tainted literature;
in a word, we must look for a Church which is rigidly
intolerant. A Christianity which is undenominational,
a Church which is comprehensive, cannot possibly be
the Church founded by our Lord Jesus Christ.
(C) The True Church ofJesus Christ must be hated.
Matt. x. 25 : “ If they have called the goodman of
the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his
household.”
Matt. xxiv. 9: “You shall be hated by all nations
for my name’s sake.”
John xvii. 14: “I have given them Thy word, and
the world hath hated them, because they are not
of the world; as I also am not of the world.”
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2 Tim. iii. 12: “And all that will live godly in
Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution.”
2 Pet. ii. 2 : “ And many shall follow their riotous
nesses, through whom the way of truth shall be
evil spoken of.”
We must look for a Church which is hated and
persecuted, not only by the irreligious world, but
which all other Christian bodies conspire to decry;
a Church which the nations endeavour to drive
out from their midst; which is held up to. obloquy
as the very acme of clericalism, obscurantism, and
soul-slavery ; which is set down as the foe of civiliza
tion ; a clog on the wheels of human progress ; a
kingdom within a kingdom; an enemy to the state;
the oppressor of freedom ; a blot upon the fair creation.
Such as this must be represented the True Church of
the persecuted Jesus Christ.
(D) The True Church of Jesus Christ must claim
to be infallible.
Matt. xvi. 18: “And I say to thee: that thou
art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my
Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it.”
John xiv. 16: “And I will ask the Father, and
He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may
abide with you for ever. The spirit of truth.”
John xviii. 37: “ For this was I born, and for
this came I into the world, that I should give testi
mony to the truth.”
1 Tim. iii. 15: “The Church of the living God,
the pillar and ground of the truth.”
1 Tim. iv. 1: “ Now the Spirit manifestly saith
that in the last times some shall depart from the
faith.”
Putting these tests together, we gather that Christ
came to impart revealed truth to men, that He
committed the faith He had taught to the Church
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The True Church of Jesus Christ
established by Him, to it He promised the ever
abiding presence of the Spirit of Truth, and though
the gates of Hell shall war upon the Church and some
shall fall from the faith, yet the Church shall not
be overcome but will preserve inviolate the precious
treasure to the end of time. Many other texts which
will suggest themselves to the mind of the reader
might have been added to strengthen the argument,
but these are sufficient to prove that the Church is
an infallible custodian of the faith. Indeed, as I
have already indicated, it must be so, for the faith
is a revelation of God to men through Christ; He
offers it to the world by the mouth of His Church,
saying accept it if you would be saved, reject it and
you will be damned. Such an utterance would be
impossible unless the Church were an infallible
exponent of His teaching. It follows that a Christian
body that does not lay claim to infallibility cannot
possibly be the True Church of Jesus Christ.
(E) The True Church ofJesus Christ must be One.
John x. 16: “And other sheep I have that are not
of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall
hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one
shepherd.”
John xi. 51—52 : “ He prophesied that Jesus should
die for the nation. And not only for the nation, but,
to gather together in one the children of God, that
were dispersed.”
John xvii. 20-22: “And not for them only do I
pray, but for them also who through their word shall
believe in Me; that they all may be one. . . . And
the glory which Thou hast given to Me, I have given
to them; that they may be one.” •
1 Cor. xii. 13: “For in one Spirit were we all
baptized into one body.”
Eph. iv. 5 : “ One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism.”
It is evident that our Lord founded one fold into
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which all men of good will should eventually be
gathered. Indeed it seems scarcely necessary to
point out that the Church must be one, for since she
is commissioned to teach truth with a consistent
voice, and truth is by its nature one while error is
manifold, it follows that there can be only one True
Church of Jesus Christ. Any theory, therefore, which
divides the Church into several Christian bodies
teaching discordant doctrines, manifestly gives the
lie to our Lord’s express promises, and outrages
the very dictates of reason.
(F) The True Church of Jesus Christ must be the
Church of all places.
Matt, xxviii. 19: “ Going therefore, teach ye all
nations.”
Col. iii. 11: “ Where there is neither Gentile nor
Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian nor
Scythian, bound nor free. But Christ is all, and in all;”
The Church may be crushed out of one place by
persecution, she may not yet have succeeded in
extending her sway over another place. But she
must be Catholic in aspiration and endeavour, pro
selytizing, militant, indomitable, aggressive. Any
body of Christians, therefore, that was founded as a
national or local institution, which the world at large
does not recognise as Catholic, cannot be the True
Church founded by Jesus Christ.
(G) The True Church ofJesus Christ must be the
Church of all times.
Matt, xxviii. 20: “ Behold I am with you all days
even to the consummation of the world.”
Mark xiii. 31 : “ My word shall not pass away.”
Eph. iii. 21: “ To Him be glory in the Church, and
in Jesus Christ unto all generations, world without
end, Amen.”
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The True Church of Jesus Christ
1 Peter i. 24-25 : “ For all flesh is as grass ; and all
the glory thereof as the flower of grass. The grass
is withered, and the flower thereof is fallen away.
But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And
this is the word which by the Gospel hath been
preached to you.”
2 John ii.: “The truth which dwelleth in us and
shall be with us for ever.”
Ap. xiv. 6 : “ The eternal Gospel.”
Ap. xiv. 12: “Here is the patience of the Saints,
who keep the Commandments of God, and the faith
of Jesus.”
See also our Lord’s promise to St. Peter and the
different parables wherein He represents Himself as
one going into a far country and returning after
many days to see how His servants have fulfilled
their charge.
The True Church of Jesus Christ is therefore that
Church which has been from the beginning of its
foundation on the Day of Pentecost, has endured
through every age since up to the present, and
will continue till the end of time. It follows that
every body of Christians which has come into being as
a distinct and organized entity subsequent to the Day
of Pentecost cannot be the one founded by our Lord.
We must look for a Church which can trace her origin
without a break back to the Day of Pentecost if we
would find the True Church of Jesus Christ.
(H) The True Church ofJesus Christ must be a
Visible Church.
Matt. v. 14-15: “You are the light of the world.
A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid. Neither
do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but
upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are
in the house.”
John xvii. 21 : “That they all may be one . . . .
that the world may believe that Thou has sent Me.”
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We have seen that the mission of Christ’s Church
upon earth is to offer to men the truth revealed by
Him : the rejection of which is a disobedience to God
so serious as to be punished by eternal damnation.
Obviously she could not fulfil this mission if she were
not visible. As such our Lord presents her to us,
“ a city seated on a mountain.” He even makes the
standing marvel of her visible oneness a proof to the
world of His own Divinity. And surely as we look
at the unity of the only .world-wide Church to-day, we
are constrained to confess that none but God could
have cemented in oneness of faith men of all nations
and tongues. The “ obedience to the faith, in all
nations” (Rom. i. 5). as we witness it at the present
day, after nearly two thousand years since it was first
preached, ought to be enough to convince the veriest
sceptic of the Divinity of Jesus Christ who has wrought
so great a wonder. Isaias the prophet, speaking of
the Church, likens her to “a straight way, so that
fools shall not err therein ” (xxxv. 8). She must,
then, be plainly visible, easy to find by those who
will look. Consequently any theory of an invisible
Church composed of all good men of every denomina
tion of Christians whose hearts are patent to none
but God, does not agree with the Church represented
to us in the language of our Lord, nor could such a
Church by any means fulfil the mission which was
committed by Him to His own True Church.
(I) The Trite Church ofJesus Christ must be
a Kingdom.
Matt. xiii. 41 : “ The Son of Man shall send His
angels, and they shall gather out of His Kingdom all
scandals, and them that work iniquity.”
Matt. xvi. 19: “And I will give to thee the keys
of the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Matt. xix. 23 : “ Amen, I say to you, that a rich
man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.”
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The True Church of Jesus Christ
John iii. 5 : “ Amen, amen, I say to thee, unless a
man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he
cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.”
See also the numerous other passages which speak
of the Kingdom of God with evident reference to the
Church militant, and consult the many prophecies
of the Old Testament which predict the founding by
God upon earth of a Kingdom greater and more
lasting than all the mighty empires that ever have
been or shall be.
Since, then, the Church of Jesus Christ is, as we
have seen, one visible Kingdom, and since the
Supreme Ruler is no longer visibly with us, it behoves
us to look for a society monarchical in constitution,
having a vicegerent duly appointed by Him. A
Christian society, therefore, the constitution whereof
is democratic, stands self-condemned, it is not the
True Church of Jesus Christ. There are, however,
many Christian bodies with at least, to outward
seeming, a monarchical form of government: in their
cases we must inquire into how the ruler holds his
title.
There are some churches which own the
temporal sovereign of the realm for their head;
he then must show that he has received his title
and authority from our Lord. This will be a difficult
matter, since in all Christendom there is no dynasty,
no throne coeval with Christianity. We must ex
clude, therefore, the Erastian churches, which, like
the Jews of old, have chosen Caesar instead of Christ.
The same with the churches that own a spiritual
head; on them also it is incumbent that they should
prove that their title has come down to them by
legitimate succession : the mandate of their authority
having been given to the first of their line by our
Lord Himself. Applying this test, we perceive that
it can only reside in some episcopal see founded by
one of the Apostles; any see which came into exist
ence after the life-time of the Apostles is ipso facto
excluded from competing. Which of the Apostles
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received any such mandate of authority from our
Lord ? There is only one.
(K) The True Church ofJesus Christ must be
founded on Peter.
Matt. xvi. 18-19 : “ And I say to thee, that thou art
Peter; and upon this rock I will build my Church,
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
And I will give to. thee the keys of the Kingdom of
Heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth,
it shall be bound also in heaven ; and whatsoever
thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in
heaven.”
Luke xxii. 31-32: “And the Lord said, Simon,
Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you that
he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for
thee, that thy faith fail not; and thou, being once
converted, confirm thy brethren.”
John xxi. 15-17: “Feed my lambs. . . . Feed my
lambs. . . . Feed my sheep.”
These three principal Petrine texts are so well
known as to need no comment. They are so clear
that the marvel is that any comment should be
necessary. The first implies Papal infallibility, show
ing that the Church derives her own infallibility from
the rock of Peter upon which our Lord founded her.
The second shows to what questions Papal infallibility
extends, namely the whole of our Lord’s teaching as
to right belief and right conduct, which is the subject
matter of Christian faith. The third shows that the
personal backsliding of Peter or any of his successors
-does not deprive them of their official prerogative.
Any Christian body, therefore, which does not claim,
or fails to establish its claim, to be in some way
founded by our Lord upon the rock of Peter, cannot
be the True Church of Jesus Christ. We know of
only one that even makes such a claim : the Church
whose centre is at Rome, the ancient bishopric of
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The True Church of Jesus Christ
St. Peter. Other sees have at times risen up against
the authority of Peter’s see, but the touch-stone of
time has always justified our Lord’s prophetic words.
Take the example of the most illustrious rebel, the
Patriarch of Constantinople : compare his past power
with his present impotence. Already nation after
nation has thrown off his usurped sway. What is
likely to happen now that the last traces of the Moslem
power, which for its own ends has upheld him, is
being swept away? Let me quote the words of a
really first-rate authority on Eastern ecclesiastical
questions (A. F., The Tablet, Nov. 16th 1912.) “Only
the CEcumenical Patriarch will suffer badly. He
will have no Patriarchate in Europe left. He will
keep Asia Minor and his honorary precedence. But
for centuries it has been coming to that. He got his
high place solely by the grace of the old Emperors:
he has always stood solely by the power of his
temporal sovereign at Constantinople. As the Turks
conquered new territory he quashed the churches of
Achrida and Ipek and joined them to his own
Patriarchate. So it is but just that, as the Turk
retires, the power of the Patriarch should retire too.
Long enough has this upstart Patriarch lorded it over
his more venerable brothers at Alexandria and
Antioch.” Compare this with the world-wide sway
of the Sovereign Pontiff, a ruler who is not a figure
head : we perceive resident in him the royalty of Jesus
Christ. Is the unparalleled power of the Papacy
founded on an illusion ? Is it the most gigantic fraud
the world has ever witnessed ? Or is it the throne
of Christ’s monarchy ? One of these three things it
must be. I think the conscientious inquirer, who
really sets his mind to the question, cannot remain
long in doubt as to his answer.
I might, dear reader, have extended yet further
our consideration of the characteristics which desig'
nate the True Church of Jesus Christ: on those
points which I have chosen I might have multiplied
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the texts and illustrations. But the space of a short
pamphlet would not permit this. I will ask you,
however, to consider these characteristics as 1 have
presented them to you, not taking them only one
by one, but also collectively, and you will perceive
that they are all interrelated and focussed to a
single point, which indicates most clearly that the
One True Church of Jesus Christ is that world-wide
Church which acknowledges the authority of the
successor of St. Peter, Pope of Rome. Into this,
the fold of Christ, you are under strictest obligation
to enter, and the penalty of your refusal is eternal
damnation. Only one excuse will avail you at the
day of your judgement, namely that you did not
know ; nor will this always avail, for if it is found
that your ignorance is the result of reluctance to
inquire or sheer carelessness amounting to great
fault, your excuse will not be admitted, you will be
irrevocably damned. Whosoever can contemplate
the prospect of eternal damnation unmoved must
surely be wanting in imagination and intelligence.
Hasten, therefore, and let nothing deter you, neither
fear of ridicule, nor estrangement of friends, nor
loss of fortune, nor that which is hardest of all, your
own innate repugnance to bow the neck. Serve we
must; it is the necessary lot of human existence, be
the man Pope, or Emperor, or simple husbandman.
Do not be deceived by those “ promising liberty,
whereas they themselves are the slaves of corruption ”
(2 Pet. ii. 19): service is essential to man, and we
must choose between Christ and Satan. The evi
dence is clear which constrains you to acknowledge
the truth of Christ’s Church: so clear that were it
applied to any other matter, no one would doubt
for a moment. But this is a question where human
reason is insufficient unaided by the light of faith.
Nor will that light break in upon a soul which
wilfully excludes it: our Lord has told us so—“if
thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be lightsome.
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But if thy eye be evil, thy whole body shall be
darksome” (Matt. vi. 22-23). This divine utterance
has been pushed almost to the point of exaggeration
by such deep thinkers as Pascal and Newman: it
is not want of evidence which makes it difficult for
us to perceive revealed truth, it is because the right
dispositions of soul are lacking. Pride, prejudice,
self-interest, the glamour of passion, spiritual sloth—
these, and suchlike things, are they that impede the
divine light from entering. Sweep them away, then,
if you would save your soul. But there is a motive
which urges you higher even and more noble than
the quest of your soul’s salvation. It is a spirit of
loving loyalty to the God who “ was seen upon
earth and conversed with men ” (Bar. iii. 38). Surely
it is a joy and an honour to fight under the banner
of Jesus Christ the Incarnate Creator. Dire, in
truth, is the conflict, but short; unending is the
reward, bright the everlasting crown. Enter, there
fore, the True Church of Jesus Christ, for He has
shown to us no other vestibule on earth of the
heavenly city to which we aspire “ having the glory
of God, and the light thereof was like to a precious
stone, as to a jasper stone, even as crystal. . . . And
the city hath no need of the sun, nor of the moon
to shine in it. For the glory of God hath enlightened
it and the Lamb is the lamp thereof. And the
nations shall walk in the light of it: and the kings
of the earth shall bring their glory and honour into
it. And the gates thereof shall not be shut by day :
for there shall be no night there. And they shall
bring the glory and honour of the nations into it.
There shall not enter into it any thing defiled, or
that worketh abomination, or maketh a lie, but they
that are written in the book of life of the Lamb”
(Ap. xxi.).
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THE CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY, LONDON.
n.—Mar. 1913.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The true church of Jesus Christ
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Northcote, Philip M.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 19 cm.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Catholic Truth Society
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1913]
Identifier
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RA1535
Rights
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br />This work (The true church of Jesus Christ), identified by <span><a href="www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.
Format
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application/pdf
Language
A language of the resource
English
Subject
The topic of the resource
Catholic Church
Jesus Christ
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Catholic Church-Apologetic Works