A
DOCTRINAL CATECHISM;
WHEREIN DIVERS POINTS OF
CATHOLIC FAITH AND PRACTICE ASSAILED BY
MODERN HERETICS
ARE SUSTAINED BY AN APPEAL TO THE
HOLY SCRIPTURES, THE TESTIMONY OF THE ANCIENT
FATHERS, AND THE DICTATES OF REASON
ON THE BASIS OF SCHEFFMACHER'S CATECHISM.
BY THE
R E V. S T E P H E N K E E N A N.
THIRD AMERICAN EDITION, REVISED AND CORRECTED,
CONFORM
ABLY TO THE DECREES OF THE COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN.
"Try all things, and hold fast that which
is good."—THESS. V. 21
IMPRIMATUR:
+ JOHN CARDINAL McCLOSKEY
ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK
P
. J. KENEDY AND SONS3 AND 5 BARCLAY STREET NEW YORK
APPROBATIONS
OF THE
ORIGINAL EDINBURGH EDITION.
A Concise Summary of Arguments, Authorities, and Proofs, in support of the Doctrines, Institutions, and Practices of the Catholic Church, is here presented in a very convenient form, as an additional antidote against the unceasing effusions of antagonist Ignorance and Misrepresentation. The Believer will be hereby instructed and confirmed in his Faith, and the sincere Searcher after Truth will here find a lucid path opened to conduct him to its sanctuary. There is much important matter condensed in these unpretending pages. The work, I trust, will meet with the notice it deserves, and the good be thus effected which the zealous and talented author has had in view in its publication.
+ ANDREW, BISHOP OF CERAMIS,
Vicar Apostolic of Eastern Scotland.
EDINBURGH, 10th April, 1846.
I have read, with much pleasure, a Catechism by the Rev. Stephen Keenan. As it contains a well-reasoned defence of the Catholic faith, and clear and satisfactory solutions of the usual objections adduced by separatists, I deem that the study of it will be most useful to all Catholics; and, therefore, I earnestly recommend it to the Faithful in the Northern District of Scotland.
+ Jas. Kyle, V A N.D.S.
PRESHOME, 15th April, 1846.
IMPRIMATUR.
+ JOHN, CARDINAL McCLOSKEY, Archbishop of New York.
Copyright, T. W. STRONG, 1876.
PREFACE
Discussions of the various questions of religion have ever been, and still are, matters of inevitable necessity, because Christianity and its dogmas have ever been, and still are, impugned by those victims of passion, prejudice, and error—the schismatic, heretic, and infidel. The true minister of Jesus Christ is thus compelled to make religious controversy an important part of his studies, as it is only by this mean he can, and with the help of God's grace, bring back these unfortunate wanderers to the fold of Christ. If angry feelings are sometimes engendered by these discussions, the fault lies with those who first raised the standard of rebellion against the authoritative teaching of the lawful pastors, whom Christ commissioned to feed his lambs and his sheep, with the bread of life and the Word of God. To elucidate truth, is the the object of free discussion; and to all who are properly qualified for the task, ample scope should be given. Catholics as regards their doctrines, court publicity; because they are fully aware, the more these are tried and examined, the stronger will be the conviction of their truth in the mind of the sincere inquirer. Of this, ample proof will be found in the multitude of late conversions,—conversions, be it observed, not of the vulgar and illiterate, but of the brightest ornaments of the age,—not of the interested and worldly, but of men who proved themselves ready to
[pg. 4]
sacrifice every worldly advantage for the sake of conscience and truth,—conversions, not of the victim of passion, as is the case when a stray Catholic becomes Protestant, but of men whose minds are pure and their hearts chaste, whose high and spotless morality is beyond all suspicion. Such are the men, who, bursting the fetters in which they had been hitherto bound, and tearing to pieces the thick veil of early prejudice by which the Protestant world is blindfolded, have boldly dared to act upon the Protestant principle of examining for themselves, and having made that examination, not without hearty commendations of themselves to heaven, have, of late, added to the glory of the Redeemer by their piety and learning, and, by their numbers, extended the pale of his true Church.
With many Protestants it is vain to argue; their preconceived notions of Catholic doctrine are such, as to prevent the infusion of the smallest portion of Catholic truth. Their teachers have been for three hundred years employed, not in refuting the true Catholic doctrine, but in inventing calumnies against, and publishing misrepresentations of Catholicism, and then amusing their audiences with a refutation, not of the Catholic religion, but of these absurd Protestant forgeries, and "ingenious devices," which they themselves have fraudulently palmed upon the public as the genuine doctrines of the Church of Rome.
Even with those who do not know the rules of discussion, and whose minds are imbued with something like honest fairness, controversy will be endless, if the Scripture alone be appealed to. That Divine Book does not and cannot explain itself, and, accordingly, each disputant will interpret to suit his own views; hence the bitter discussions, and interminable contradictions, observable[pg. 5]
among all those sects who have separated themselves from the Catholic Church. Tertullian, in his Book of Prescriptions, points out the proper method of refuting all heresies. He tells them to give proofs of their mission,—opposes to their novelties, the traditional doctrines of the Apostolic Churches,—and points to their jarring and contradictory systems, as invincible proofs that they are teachers of error. Thus, without any appeal to Scripture, had the first reformers been asked, Whence come ye? from whence have ye derived your mission? they would have looked very foolish, for to this question they could give no reply. They were not sent by any lawful pastor;—they had no mission from any Christian Church;—they and their novelties came fifteen hundred years too late to have any connection with the Apostles. In thus setting up as preachers, without any mission, they outraged the common sense of men. Christ himself, Moses, and the Apostles, preached new doctrines, but they treated men as rational beings,—they proved they were sent by God by the most evident and astonishing miracles; but the reforming ministers never wrought even one miracle to prove to their unfortunate followers that they were sent by God, or to stamp upon their new system the seal of heaven.
These self-commissioned men railed against tradition, because it condemned their novelties; but had they been asked to prove, without the aid of tradition, that even the very Bible, of which they boasted so much, was the Word of God, they would have been much embarrassed; for without the traditional argument, no man can prove the Bible to be God's Word. Hence, the very first principle of the Protestant Creed—rests solely on the authority of tradition; and, consequently, if, as they maintain, tradi-[pg. 6]
tional be only human doctrines, their whole creed is merely human, for it first principle, upon which all their other doctrines are grounded, rests solely, even according to themselves, upon the authority of men. Those who talk of the Bible as the only rule of faith, would do well to make this matter a subject of serious meditation; if they do, they will ask themselves, How can this be, since even the authenticity, integrity, and divinity of the Bible, can be proved only by a reference to tradition?
The heresies of modern times are as productive of sects and divisions as those which appeared in the days of Tertullian; they are daily spawning new religions, as perplexing and pestiferous as the parents from which they spring; and thus they will continue, shooting off in every direction, no matter how preposterous or absurd, until their very absurdity will force the pious and reasoning portion back into the bosom of the Catholic Church and drive the thoughtless and vainly-wise section of them into the broad, but dark and hopeless, path of infidelity.
On the subject of religious controversy, numerous works of deep research and intrinsic merit have of late issued from the press. Most of these, however, are so diffuse and expensive as to render them useless to many Catholics and Protestants, who, though anxious in their search after truth, have neither time nor education to enable them to read, nor money to procure, elaborate and expensive publications; others, again, are so compendious, and the arguments so abridged, that, when put into the hands of the superficial Protestant, they fail to produce conviction. Some others, in fine, there are, the scope of which is rather to instruct Catholics in the faith and practices of their religion, than to disabuse the Protestant mind of its prejudices and its errors. Among these works of real talent and merit, something seemed to the writer[pg. 7]
of the following pages to be still wanting—viz.: an epitome of controversy in a concise and cheap form, comprising the principle arguments on the various questions most commonly controverted, combining perspicuity with brevity and cheapness, that it might be within the reach of all Catholics who are called to give a reason for the faith that is in them, and of all sincere inquiring Protestants, whose occupations and circumstances preclude the possibility of their having recourse to more learned, more voluminous, and expensive works.
Whether this desideratum be supplied by the following little work, the public will soon determine. The plan and a portion of the groundwork are taken from a small controversial treatise by Father Scheffmacher, a German Jesuit, who held the chair of controversy at Strasburg about a century ago. It was at first the intention of the writer to give only a translation of Scheffmacher's Catechism, but, after a careful examination of it, he found some important articles treated with such brevity, that it was necessary to remodel and extend them, while others of vital interest were scarcely touched at all; indeed, such were the changes and additions which the writer was obliged to make, that the present may be considered an almost entirely new work. As the object of the writer is to do good, and not to acquire fame, he acknowledges his obligations, in some instances, to several Continental and some English Divines; and trusts that an indulgent public will find, in the solidity of the matter, an apology for all defects in manner and style. He also takes this opportunity of expressing his gratitude to the eminent Catholic prelate to whom the work, for the sake of security, was submitted; and feels assured, that nothing will be found in it unworthy of his Lordship's patronage. If, in fine, this publication promote the cause of[pg. 8]
religion and truth;—if, by being put into the hands of the Neophyte, it lighten the burden of his brother clergymen in the matter of controversial instruction;—if it aid in dispelling error,—in carrying conviction to the mind,—in bringing back to the unity of the one fold some of the many who have wandered from it,—the writer will consider his labors amply rewarded.
[pg. 9]
CONTENTS
RISE AND PROGRESS OF PROTESTANTISM.
Chap. i. Nature and author of Protestantism, p. 15.
Chap. ii. Causes of Luther's new Creed, p. 17.
Chap. iii. Luther required to retract by Cardinal Cajetan, p. 19.
Chap. iv. Luther judged by the Universities of Paris, &c, p. 21.
Chap. v. Luther cited by the secular power, p. 23.
Chap. vi. Luther's mode of supplying his Church with priests. p. 26.
LUTHER'S REFORMATION NOT THE WORK OF GOD.
Chap. i. God not the author of
the change of religion, p. 28.
Chap. ii. Luther's language to the Emperor and the Pope. p. 30.
Chap. iii. Luther's doctrine not of God, p. 32.
Chap. iv. Luther's schism not brought about by God, p. 34.
Chap. v. Means used by Luther not from God, p. 36.
Chap. vi. What then are Luther's followers obliged to? p. 38.
THE TRUE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST
Chap. i. To be saved we must be members of the
true Church—the true Church is that which was established eighteen hundred
years ago, and has existed unceasingly since that time, p. 40.
Chap. ii. In what Church do we find these two marks of truth? p.
43.
Chap. iii. Can Protestants tell where and what was the true
Church before Luther's time? p. 45.
Chap. iv. What of the Hussites and Vaudois? p. 47.
Chap. v. Chief marks of the true Church—its Unity, p. 50.
Chap. vi. Holiness, p. 55.
Chap. vii. Catholicity, p. 59.
Chap viii. Apostolicity, p. 66.
[pg. 10]
RULE OF FAITH.
Chap. i. Divine faith—its
qualities and necessity, p. 72.
Chap. ii. Faith of Protestants, not firm, but full of doubt, p.
75.
Chap. iii. They are not certain that their Bible is free of
error, p. 78.
Chap. iv. They are not certain as to the sense of the Bible, p.
81.
Chap. v. Qualities of the Catholic rule of faith, p. 84.
Chap. vi. Tradition as connected with the rule of faith, p. 86.
PROTESTANTS DO NOT ADHERE TO THE BIBLE ALONE.
Chap. i. They do not adhere to it
in the matter of God's commandments, p. 88.
Chap. ii. Neither do they on the subject of faith, p. 90.
Chap. iii. Nor do they on assurance, p. 92.
Chap. iv. They abide not by it as regards the Church, p. 95.
Chap. v. Nor on the subject of Scripture, p. 97.
Chap. vi. Additional proofs that they are not guided by
Scripture alone, p. 101.
OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST AND THE SAINTS.
Chap. i. Second Person of the
Blessed Trinity, p. 102.
Chap. ii. What we owe to Jesus Christ, p. 103.
Chap. iii. Catholics glorify Christ more than Protestants do,
p. 105.
Chap iv. Catholics do not abandon Christ by asking the prayers
of the saints, p. 107.
Chap. v. The invocation of saints is Scriptural, p. 109.
Chap. vi. The antiquity of this practice, p. 110.
COMMUNION UNDER ONE KIND.
Chap. i. Reception of both kinds not
necessary, p. 111.
Chap. ii. Salvation promised to the reception of one kind, p.
113.
Chap. iii. The early and pure Church often administered under
one kind only, p. 114.
Chap. iv. Text, Matth xvi.—"Drink ye all of this,"
answered, p. 116.
Chap. v. Additional reply to an obstinate Protestant, p. 118.
[pg. 11]
SACRIFICE OF THE MASS.
Chap. i. Essentials of the Mass
instituted by Christ, p. 120.
Chap. ii. Sacrifices of the Old Law, p. 125.
Chap. iii. Mass a true propitiatory sacrifice, p. 127.
PURGATORY.
Chap. i. General proofs of the
existence of a middle state, p. 130.
Chap. ii. Proofs from the New Testament, p. 132.
Chap. iii. Proofs from Tradition, p. 136.
JUSTIFICATION.
Chap. i. What is it?—How is
the sinner justified? p. 138.
Chap. ii. What part has faith in justification? p. 139.
Chap iii. Can one in mortal sin merit heaven? p. 142.
Chap. iv. What gives their value to good
works? p. 144.
Chap. v. Can man satisfy for his own sins? p. 146.
INDULGENCES.
What is an Indulgence?—the
arguments for Indulgences from Scripture, Fathers, and Councils, p. 149.
HEAD OF THE CHURCH.
Chap. i. Head of the Church, p.
153.
Chap. ii. Primacy of St. Peter, p. 156.
Chap. iii. What follows from the admission of this supremacy,
p. 159.
Chap. iv. All are bound to obey the Bishop of Rome, p. 161.
THE POPE IS NOT ANTICHRIST.
This injurious assertion of Protestants is contrary to Scripture, p. 163.
COUNCILS.
Chap. i. The different kinds of Councils and
the weight of their decisions, p. 166.
Chap ii. Number of general Councils and obedience due to them,
p. 169.
[pg. 12]
OBEDIENCE TO THE CHURCH.
Chap. i. Scripture commands this
obedience, p. 171.
Chap. ii. Object of the commandments of the Church, p. 173.
Chap. iii. Why she forbids meats, p. 175.
Chap. iv. Lent—who established it, 177.
Chap. v. Why was Lent established? p. 179.
Chap. vi. Reply to the scoffers at fasting and abstinence, p.
180.
ON THE SACRAMENTS.
BAPTISM.
There are seven sacraments, p.
181.
On the subject of infant baptism, a Protestant cannot refute an
Anabaptist- the matter, form and institution of baptism, p. 184.
CONFIRMATION.
It is a sacrament, p. 187.
Scriptural and traditional proofs, p. 188.
HOLY EUCHARIST.
A sacrament of the New Law, p.
190.
Promises of Christ regarding it, p. 195.
Christ declares what it is, p. 198.
He fulfils his promise by actually instituting it, p. 204.
Scriptural proofs continued, p. 209.
Reply to those who say that is means represents,
p. 217.
Transubstantiation, p. 224.
Christ permanently present in the Eucharist, 229.
Adoration of Christ in the Eucharist, p. 231.
SACRAMENT OF PENANCE AND CONFESSION.
The end of this sacrament, p.
232.
Confession not a modern invention, p. 235.
Confession a Divine Institution, p. 237.
Scriptural proofs for the practice of the first Christians, p.
240.
EXTREME UNCTION.
Scriptural proofs for the existence of this
sacrament, p. 243.
Testimony of the Fathers, p. 246.
[pg. 13]
HOLY ORDERS.
Orders a sacrament. Pastors by whom sent, p. 247.
MATRIMONY.
Matrimony a sacrament, p. 252.
Catholic Church does not forbid any one to marry, p. 257.
CEREMONIES OF THE CHURCH.
Why so many ceremonies, p. 259.
Blessing of inanimate things, p. 261.
Holy water, p. 263.
Sign of the Cross, p. 264.
Vestments, 266.
Mass in Latin, p. 268.
PICTURES AND IMAGES.
Their use—not forbidden by
Scripture—used by God's own order, p. 272.
Relics, p. 276.
Pilgrimages, p. 278.
VENERATION OF THE EVER-BLESSED VIRGIN.
Catholics do not adore the Blessed Virgin or
any creature, &c., p. 280.
Scriptural proofs of her pre-eminent dignity, p. 283.
Testimony of the ancient Church and early Fathers, p. 288.
On Persecution, p. 292.
On the Inquisition. p. 301.
The power of a General Council, or a Papal Consistory, in
temporal matters, p. 305.
On the reading of Scripture, p. 307.
Monks, Friars, and Nuns, p. 311.
Charge of ignorance made against Catholics, p. 313.
Charge of Uncharitableness, p. 321.
ON HERESY.
What is it? p. 324.
Peculiarities accompanying every heresy, p. 327.
Luther and Calvin as missionless as Arius, p. 330.
[pg. 14]
THE VARIOUS RULES OF FAITH.
Arian or Socinian rule exploded,
p. 335.
Baptists', Methodists', and Quakers' rule refuted, p. 335.
Lutheran and Calvinistic rule proved absurd and rejected, p.
338.
Many necessary truths not contained in Scripture, p. 347.
Neither the Old nor the New Law recognise the Scripture as the
only rule, p. 355.
Tradition to be admitted as well as Scripture, p. 357.
TRUE RULE OF FAITH, OR THE TEACHING OF THE
INFALLIBLE
CHURCH OF CHRIST.
Catholic rule of faith proved
from the Old Testament, p. 362.
The same proved from the New Testament, p. 368.
Reasons why the Catholic interpretation of the texts which bear
on this subject should be preferred to that of Protestants, p. 379.
Argument from reason on this subject, p. 385.
THE CHURCH CALLED CATHOLIC IS THE TRUE
INFALLIBLE
CHURCH OF CHRIST.
The proofs, p. 386.
The Protestant Church has none of the Scriptural marks of
truth, p. 388.
The Catholic Church has all the Scriptural marks of truth, p.
391.
[pg. 15]
THE
RISE AND PROGRESS OF
PROTESTANTISM,
DRAWN FROM THE WORKS OF LUTHER HIMSELF.
CHAPTER I.
Question. What is Protestantism?
Answer. A new religion, invented and propagated by a
man, named Martin Luther.
Q. In what year was Luther born?
A. In 1483.
Q. Where was he born?
A. In Eisleben, of Prussian Saxony.
Q. Of what Religion were his parents?
A. They were Catholics, as were all his ancestors.
Q. At the time Luther was born, what was the religion of
all Europe?
A. All believed what the Catholics believe at the present
time.
Q. Was Luther himself a Catholic for any time?
[pg. 16]
A. He was a Catholic until his
thirty-fifth year.
Q. What was his state of life?
A. He was a monk of the order of discalced
Augustinians.
Q. As such had he made religious vows?
A. At the age of twenty-three years, he made vows of
poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Q. Was he bound to keep these vows?
A. Without doubt, since he made them after mature
reflection, and of his own free will; because the Prophet says, (Ps. xlix:)
"Pay thy vows to the Most High;" and God himself says, (Num. ch. xxx:)
"If any man make a vow to the Lord, or bind himself by an oath, he shall
not make his word void, but shall fulfil all that he promised."
Q. Did Luther obey this command of God by keeping his
vows?
A. No; he violated all the three; he apostatized,—he
married Catherine de Boré, a nun, like himself under vows, and he utterly
disobeyed every ecclesiastical authority.
Q. Was this man in reality the founder of the Protestant
religion, and the first of that sect that ever appeared in the world?
A. Most certainly; for no minister, no congregation,
no body of Divines professing Protestant doctrines, was ever heard of until
his time.
[pg. 17]
Q. What inference do you draw from all
this?
A. That Protestantism cannot be the religion of
Christ; because, if the Church of Christ required reformation, a God of purity
and holiness would never have chosen such an immoral character—an apostate,
a wholesale vow-breaker, a sacrilegious seducer—for that purpose.
CHAPTER II.
Q. What induced Luther to attack the
ancient Catholic faith and invent a new creed?
A. Pride and jealousy. Pride Leo having granted an
Indulgence, Luther's pride was mortified, because the commission to preach
that Indulgence was given to the order of St. Dominic, and not to his own.
Q. To what did he allow himself to be driven by this
pride and jealousy?
A. To attack the doctrine of Indulgences itself.
Q. Would the Catholic Church have blamed Luther had he
merely attacked the abuses or avarice of individual Catholics?
A. No, certainly. He erred in this, that under
pretence of reprehending abuses, he assailed the true faith on the subject of
Indulgences.
[pg. 18]
Q. What was his next step?
A. He posted on the gates of the Church of Wittemburg,
ninety-five articles, which he wrote and which contained many things not in
accordance with the doctrines of the Church.
Q. Were these articles refuted?
A. They were, and with much ability, by some
Catholic Theologians, to whom Luther replied with a haughty insolence unworthy
of a Christian.
Q. What hypocritical pretences did Luther make in 1517,
during these disputes?
A. He pretended that he wished to teach nothing but
what was conformable to Scripture, to the Holy Fathers, and approved by the
Holy See. (T.1. Ger. Edit. Gen. p. 12.)
Q. What did he write to Jerome, Bishop of Brandenburg?
A. That he wished to decide nothing himself, and
that he wished to submit all his doctrines to the Church. (Ibid, p. 54.)
Q. What did he write to Pope Leo in 1518?
A. That he would listen to that Pope's decision as to an
oracle proceeding from the mouth of Jesus Christ. (Ibid, p. 58)
Q. What did he promise to his religious superiors?
A. That he would be silent, if his adversaries were
placed under the same restraint.
[pg. 19]
Q. What inference do you draw from all
this?
A. That he was either a hypocrite who did not intend
to fulfil his promises, or that he was quite satisfied of the truth of the
doctrines which he impugned, since otherwise he could not conscientiously
promise silence and obedience.
Q. What other consequences do you draw?
A. That a man swollen with pride, envy, jealousy—a
disobedient hypocrite—was not the person to be chosen by God to reform
abuses if any such existed.
CHAPTER III.
Q. What took place at Augsburg between
Luther and Cardinal Cajetan?
A. The Cardinal required of him, that he should
retract his errors, which Luther refused, appealing at the same time to the
most celebrated Universities of Germany, and to that of Paris, and pledging
himself most humbly to submit to their decision. (Ibid, p. 119 and p. 14.)
Q. Did he stand by that appeal?
A. No; he appealed a short time after to the Pope.
(Ibid, p. 122)
Q. Did he abide by this second appeal?
A. No; he next appealed "from the Pope
[pg. 20]
ill-informed," "to the Pope well-informed"
(Ibid, p. 205)
Q. Did he stop even here?
A. No; he then appealed to a General Council. (Ibid,
p. 351)
Q. Did he abide by this resolution to submit to the
decision of a General Council?
A. No; at the Diet of Worms, he declared flatly that
the would not submit his doctrine to any Council. (Ibid, pp. 448, 450, 452)
Q. What do you conclude from such conduct?
A. In the first place, that Luther must have
been extremely fickle to appeal to so many Judges, and to abide by the
decision of none. Secondly, that he knew his cause was bad and his
doctrine false, since he would not submit it even to the best judges. Thirdly,
that he must have been brimful of sinful pride and obstinacy, since he
preferred his own single judgment to that of the whole Christian world.
Q. But did not Luther promise to abandon his errors, if
any one would prove them such from Scripture?
A. Yes; but this was only an artifice to enable him
more freely to propagate them; because he well knew that the Scriptures may be
wrested into any, or every meaning; that one could give them any sense he
pleased, as
[pg. 21]
the Mormons, the Millerites, and other strange sects do at
the present day:—the Scripture is made to teach all sorts of contradictions.
Q. What was his real object in this subterfuge?
A. He wished to impose his monstrous errors on the
public, as truths bearing the sacred stamp of Scriptural authority. Had he
been sincere in his appeal, he would have said:—I shall leave it to the
Church to decide whether my doctrine is conformable to the Scripture or not.
CHAPTER IV.
Q. What judgment did the Universities,
to which Luther appealed, pronounce upon his doctrine?
A. They condemned his doctrine as false and
heretical. (Ibid, p. 539.)
Q. What Universities did so?
A. The Universities of Leipsic, Cologne, Louvain,
and Paris.
Q. Did Luther abide by their decision as he had
promised?
A. No; on the contrary, he poured forth a torrent of
invectives and insults against them; he called the University of Paris
"the mother of errors," "the daughter of Antichrist,"
"the gate of hell" (Ibid, p. 548.)
[pg. 22]
Q. What was the judgment of the Pope
to whom Luther appealed, and whose decisions he promised to receive, as if
they came from the mouth of Christ himself?
A. The Pope published a Bull, condemning forty-one
articles of Luther's doctrine.
Q. What does the Pope say in that Bull?
A. That he had done every thing he could to reclaim Luther,
but that all his paternal cares and advices had been unavailing. He give
Luther sixty days to retract, and orders his works to be formally burned at
the end of that period, should he persist in his errors.
Q. Did Luther submit?
A. No; he now renounces the authority to which he
had appealed; he writes against the Bull of his chief Superior, whom he had
vowed to obey; he denounces the Papal decision as the decision of Antichrist,
(Ibid, p. 345;) he publicly burns the Bull, along with the book of Decretals.
(Ibid, p. 353.)
Q. Had Luther previously written, in the most submissive
terms, declaring that he was willing to cast himself at the feet of his
Holiness?
A. Yes, (Ibid, p. 58;) but the moment the Pope
opposed him, he changed his language, declaring that not only the Bull, but
the Pope himself should be burned. (Ibid, p. 553.)
[pg. 23]
Q. Had Luther not written, a little
before, that his preservation or destruction depended entirely on the
absolution or condemnation of his holiness? (Ibid, p. 53.)
A. Yes; but he now declares that men must take up arms
against the Pope, the Cardinals and Bishops, and wash their hands in the blood
of these dignitaries. (Ibid. p. 60.)
Q. Had he not written, before this time, that the Pope
and the Catholic Church were the highest spiritual authority on earth? (Ibid,
p. 144.)
A. Yes; but he now teaches, that none but those who oppose
the Papal authority can be saved. (Ibid, p. 553.)
Q. What do you now think of Luther's conduct?
A. I can discover nothing in it but the spirit of
inconsistancy, doubt, error, and revenge, without even the slightest mark of
the spirit of God.
CHAPTER V.
Q. What did the secular power do to
suppress the rising heresy?
A. The Emperor Charles V. cited Luther to appear
before the Diet of Worms, and sought to reclaim him by the mildest means.
[pg. 24]
Q. What reply did Luther make to the
order of the Emperor?
A. He replied, that from the wording of the order,
one would suppose the Emperor to be either a maniac or a demoniac. (Ibid, p.
460.)
Q. Why was not Luther confined, to prevent him from
corrupting others, and from exciting disturbance?
A. He had received the assurance of a safe-conduct,
and the civil authorities could not break their promise. When, however, the
term of the safe-conduct had expired, the Emperor proscribed Luther as a
sectarian, cut off from the body of the Church.
Q. Whither did Luther then retire?
A. To the castle of Wittemburg, where he wrote the
most false and pernicious works.
Q. What was the effect of these works, in which he spoke
of nothing but "evangelical liberty?"
A. These works produced disturbances, sedition, and amongst
other evils, the German War of the Peasants, who committed every sort of
excess, declaring that the rich had no exclusive right to their property, that
every thing should be held in common, because in the 2nd chapter of the Acts,
it is said, that all property was common amongst the first Christians.
[pg. 25]
Q. Did other divisions and schisms
soon appear amongst the Lutherans?
A. Yes; each disciple of Luther thought he had as
good a right as his master to expound the Scripture according to his own
peculiar whim;—Carlostad, Zwinglius, Calvin, Muncer, Schwenckfeld, were of
this opinion. They interpreted for themselves, denounced their master, and set
up religions of their own.
Q. Did the thing called "religion," invented
by Luther, continue thus to give rise to new and different sects?
A. Yes; every year gave rise to a new spawn of
sectarians,—a short period produced thirty-four different sects; and
even to this day, the religion of Luther is as prolific of sects and
sectarians, as the putrid carcass is of insects or vermin. So true is it, that
when we once abandon truth, there can be no end to our wanderings in the mazes
of error; that when we once break the moorings which bind us to the rock of
truth, by the adoption of false principle, such as that of private
interpretation, we are only the prey of endless, ever-varying, erroneous human
opinions,—tossed to and fro on a wide ocean of contradictions and
contrarieties,—to-day on one track, to-morrow upon another,—certain of
nothing, but ultimate
[pg. 26]
shipwreck on the rock of infidelity, or the quicksands of
heresy and schism.
Q. What lesson do you learn from this portion of
Luther's conduct?
A. That the man who wantonly disobeys all authority,
both ecclesiastical and civil—the man who perverts the sacred Scripture, for
the purpose of exciting sedition and anarchy, and propagating evident heresy
and schism—cannot possibly be the ambassador of heaven.
CHAPTER VI.
Q. What means did Luther resort to for
the purpose of supplying his new church with priests, seeing that no bishop
could, or would ordain any of his followers?
A. He invented a new doctrine on that subject, a
doctrine never known in the Church till his time.
Q. What was that doctrine?
A. That all Christians—men, women, and children,
even infants—were truly and really priests, and that nothing was wanting to
them but presentation to a cure. (Ibid, pp. 64, 336, 369.)
Q. Upon what did he found this unheard of doctrine?
A. Upon that passage of St. Peter, "You are
[pg. 27]
a royal priesthood." "St. Peter," he
reasoned, "addresses this to all Christians, therefore all Christians are
priests." He might equally well have proved, from the same passage, that
all Christians are kings; since St. Peter declares that they are all ROYAL.
Hence, as all Christians are confessedly not kings, so neither are they all
priests. Hence, again, all the followers of Luther should be satisfied, that
their pretended pastors are only wolves in sheep's clothing, who entered the
fold not by the door but over the wall, since their pretended orders and
mission are founded only upon a passage of Scripture evidently perverted to
suit a purpose.
Q. What was Luther's next step after abolishing the true
priesthood amongst his followers?
A. He next abolished the true Sacrifice.
Q. What did he allege against the sacrifice of the Mass?
A. Various things which he learned from the devil,
as he himself declares.
Q. How does he express himself on that subject in his
book on the Mass? (Tom. vi, p. 82.)
A. "Having awoke," he says, "about midnight,
the devil commenced a dispute with me on the subject of the Mass."
Q. What did the devil say to him?
[pg. 28]
A. "Listen, most sapient
Doctor," said the father of lies: "during fifteen years you
have said Mass almost every day. What if all these acts have been only so many
acts of idolatry?"
Q. Did Luther hearken to the paternal advice of his
sable director?
A. He listened so well, that he allowed himself to
be persuaded that the devil was right and he was wrong, so that the enemy of
man came off victor; and though Luther in the same book calls the devil the
most artful and lying deceiver, he here chose to follow his advice rather than
that of the Church.
Q. What think you of all this?
A. One can hardly tell at which to be most
astonished,—at the open and brazen avowal of Luther, or the awful blindness
of those who follow a master, who, by his own account, received his training
and instruction in the school of Satan.
THE PROTESTANT PRETENDED REFORMATION
IS NOT THE WORK OF GOD
CHAPTER I.
Q. Can any one reasonably believe that the change in religion brought about by Luther is the work of God?
[pg. 29]
A. No one can believe it, unless he be
utterly ignorant of the true nature of religion, and very unlearned in the
matters of history.
Q. Why do you make this answer?
A. Because, in the first place, the author of the
Reformation is not a man of God; secondly, because his work is not the work of
God; thirdly, because the means which he used in effecting his purpose are not
of God.
Q. Why do you say Luther is not a man of God?
A. Because he has left us in his works abundant
proof, that if God saw a need for any reformation in his Church, such a man as
Luther would not be selected to carry God's will into effect.
Q. What have you to blame in Luther's works?
A. They are full of indecencies very offensive to
modesty, crammed with a low buffoonery well calculated to bring religion into
contempt, and interlarded with very many gross insults offered in a spirit
very far from Christian charity and humility, to individuals of dignity and
worth.
Q. Passing over his indecencies in silence, give us a
specimen of his buffooneries and insults. What does he say to the King of
England, replying to a book which the King had written against him? (Tom.
ii, p. 145.)
[pg. 30]
A. He calls the king "an ass,"
"an idiot," "a fool," "whom very infants ought to
mock."
Q. How does he treat Cardinal Albert, Archbishop and
Elector of Mayence, in the work which he wrote against the Bishop of Magdeburg?
(Tom. vii, p. 353.)
A. He calls him "an unfortunate little priest, crammed
with an infinite number of devils."
Q. What does he say of Henry, Duke of Brunswick? (Tom.
vii, p. 118.)
A. That he had "swallowed so may devils in eating and
drinking, that he could not even spit any thing but a devil." He calls
Duke George of Saxony, "a man of straw, who, with his immense belly,
seemed to bid defiance to heaven, and to have swallowed up Jesus Christ
himself." (Tom. ii, p. 90.)
CHAPTER II.
Q. Was Luther's language more
respectful, when he addressed the Emperor and the Pope?
A. No; he treated them both with equal indignities;
he said that the Grand Turk had ten times the virtue and good sense of the
Emperor,—that the Pope was "a wild beast," "a ravenous wolf,
against whom all Europe should rise in arms."
Q. What do you conclude from Luther's
[pg. 31]
insolent, outrageous, and libertine manner of speaking?
A. That he was not the man to be chosen by God to
reform his church; for his language is the strongest proof that he was
actuated, not by the spirit of God, but by the spirit of the devil.
Q. May not his party say, that they care little about
the manner of the man, if his doctrine be true,—that it is not upon
him, but upon the word of God, they build their faith?
A. If the Protestant doctrine be true, then God used
Luther as a chosen instrument to reestablish his true faith; but no reasonable
man can possibly believe the latter; therefore, neither can any reasonable man
believe that the Protestant is the true faith.
Q. May it not be objected that there were individual
pastors in the Catholic Church as worthless as Luther?
A. Yes; but all the pastors of the Catholic Church
were not so at one and the same time, whilst Luther, at the time we speak of,
was the first and only teacher of Protestantism. Besides, Christ himself give
an unanswerable reply to the objection, (Matth. xxiii:) "The Scribes and
Pharisees have sitten in the chair of Moses; all things therefore whatsoever
they shall say to you, observe and do, but according
[pg. 32]
to their works do ye not." Again, some Catholic pastors may have been bad men, but still they were the lawful ministers of God, having succeeded to lawfully commissioned predecessors; but Luther stood alone, he succeeded to none having lawful authority from whom he could derive a mission. In fine, whatever may have been the lives of some vicious Catholic pastors, they taught nothing new, their teaching was the same as that of the best and holiest ministers of the Church. Hence, there was no innovation in matters of faith, or principles of morality. But Luther was the first to teach a new doctrine, unknown in the world before his time.
CHAPTER III.
Q. We are now satisfied that the
author of Protestantism was not a man of God; show us that his undertaking was
not from God;—what did he undertake?
A. He undertook to show that the Church had fallen
into error, separated himself from her, and formed his followers into a party
against her.
Q. Could such an undertaking be from God?
A. No; for God has commanded us not to sit in
judgment upon the Church, but to hear
[pg. 33]
and obey her with respect; "and if he will not hear the
church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican." (Matth. chap.
xviii.)
Q. Was it the particular "territorial" Church
of the Roman States, or the Universal Catholic Church, that Luther charged
with having erred?
A. It was the Universal Church he dared to
calumniate in this manner.
Q. How do you prove this?
A. Before the time of Luther, there was no Christian
society in the whole world which believed the doctrines afterwards taught by
Luther; consequently, he assailed not any particular sect or church, but the
faith of the whole Christian world.
Q. Are you quite sure, that it is incontestably true,
that no Christian body every believed, before Luther's time, the new doctrines
be began then to propagate?
A. So sure, that we have Luther's own authority for
it. His words are, (Tom. ii, p. 9, b.:) "How often has not my conscience
been alarmed? How often have I not said to myself:—Dost thou ALONE of all
men pretend to be wise? Dost thou pretend that ALL CHRISTIANS have been in
error, during such a long period of years?"
Q. What was it that gave Luther most
[pg. 34]
pain, during the time he meditated the introduction of
his new religion?
A. A hidden respect for the authority of the Church,
which he found it impossible to stifle.
Q. How does he express himself on this matter? (Tom.
ii, p. 5.)
A. "After having subdued all other considerations, it
was with the utmost difficulty I could eradicate from my heart the feeling
that I should obey the Church." "I am not so
presumptuous," said he, "as to believe, that it is in God's name I
have commenced and carried on this affair; I should not wish to go to
judgment, resting on the fact that God is my guide in these
matters." (Tom. p. 364, b.)
CHAPTER IV.
Q. What think you of the schism caused
by Luther? Can one prudently believe that it is the work of God?
A. No; because God himself has forbidden schism as a
dreadful crime: St. Paul (1st Corinth. chap. i. ver. 10) says: "Now I
beseech you, brethren by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak
the same thing, and that there be no SCHISMS among you; but that you be
perfect in the same mind and same judgment."
[pg. 35]
Q. What idea did Luther himself
entertain about schism before he blinded himself by his infuriated antipathy
to the Pope?
A. He declared, that it was not lawful for any
Christian whatever to separate himself from the Church of Rome.
Q. Repeat the very words of Luther touching this
important matter. (Tom. i, p. 116, b.)
A. "There is no question, no matter how important,
which will justify a separation from the Church." Yet, notwithstanding,
he himself burst the moorings which bound him to the Church, and, with his
small band of ignorant and reckless followers, opposed her by every means in
his power.
Q. What do you remark on historical examples of conduct
similar to this ever since the birth of Christianity?
A. That in every age, when a small body detached
itself from the Church, on account of doctrinal points, it has been
universally the case, that the small body plunged by degrees deeper and deeper
into error and heresy, and in the end, brought by its own increasing
corruption into a state of decomposition, disappeared and perished. Of this we
have hundreds of examples; nor can Lutherans or Calvinists reasonably hope,
that their heresy and schism can have any other end. They are
[pg. 36]
walking in the footsteps of those who have strayed from the fold of truth,—from the unity of faith; and they can have no other prospect, than the end of so many heresies that have gone before them.
CHAPTER V.
Q. Why have you said, that the means
adopted by Luther, to establish his new religion, were not of God? What were
those means?
A. That he might secure followers, he employed such means
as were calculated to flatter the passions of men; he strewed the path to
heaven—not like Christ with thorns, but like the devil—with flowers;
he took off the cross which Christ had laid on the shoulders of
men, he made wide the easy way, which Christ had left narrow and
difficult.
Q. Repeat some of Luther's improvements upon
the religion of Christ.
A. He permitted all who had made solemn vows of
chastity, to violate their vows and marry; he permitted temporal sovereigns to
plunder the property of the Church; he abolished confession, abstinence,
fasting, and every work of penance and mortification.
Q. How did he attempt to tranquillize the consciences he
had disturbed by these scandalously libertine doctrines?
[pg. 37]
A. He invented a thing, which he called
justifying faith, to be a sufficient substitute for all the above painful
religious works, and invention which took off every responsibility from our
shoulders, and laid all on the shoulders of Jesus Christ; in a word, he told
men to believe in the merits of Christ as certainly applied to them, and
live as they pleased, to indulge every criminal passion, without even the
restraints of modesty.
Q. How did he strive to gain over to his party a
sufficient number of presumptuous, unprincipled, and dissolute men of talent,
to preach and propagate his novelties?
A. He pandered to their passions and flattered their
pride, by granting them the sovereign honor of being their own judges in every
religious question; he presented them with the Bible, declaring that each one
of them, ignorant and learned, was perfectly qualified to decide upon every
point of controversy.
Q. What did he condescend to do for Philip, Landgrave of
Hesse, in order to secure his support and protection?
A. He permitted him to keep two wives at one and the
same time. The name of the second was Margaret de Saal, who had been maid of
honor to his lawful wife, Christina de Saxe. Nor was Luther the only Protestant
Doctor
[pg. 38]
who granted this monstrous dispensation from the law of God;
eight of the most celebrated Protestant leaders signed, with their own hand,
the filthy and adulterous document.
Q. Does the whole history of Christianity furnish us
with even one such scandalous dispensation derived from ecclesiastical
authority?
A. No; nor could such brutal profligacy be countenanced
even for a moment, seeing that the Scripture is so explicit on the subject.
Gen. ii, Matth. xix, Mark x, speak of two in one flesh, but never of three.
But Luther and his brethren were guided, not by the letter of the Scripture,
but by the corrupt passions, wishes, and inclinations of men. To induce their
followers to swallow the new creed, they gave them, in return, liberty to
gratify every appetite.
Q. If neither the author of
Protestantism, nor his work itself, nor the means he adopted to effect his
purpose, are from God, what are his followers obliged to?
A. They are obliged, under pain of eternal
damnation, to seek earnestly and re-enter the true Church, which seduced by
Luther, they
[pg. 39]
abandoned: If they be sincere, God will aid them in their
inquiry.
Q. What is the situation of the man who does not at once
acquit himself of this obligation?
A. He is the victim of mortal heresy and schism; the
thing he calls a church has no pastors lawfully sent or ordained; hence, he
can receive none of the Sacraments declared in Scripture to be so necessary to
salvation.
Q. What think you of those (they are many) who are at
heart convinced that the Catholic Church is the only true one, and are still
such cowards as to dread making a public profession of their faith?
A. "He," says our Saviour—Luke, ix
chap., 26 ver., "who shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him the
Son of Man shall be ashamed, when he shall come in his majesty."
Q. What think you of those who are inclined to
Catholicism, but out of family considerations neglect to embrace it?
A. Our Saviour, in the 10th chap. of St. Matth.,
tells such, that he who loves father or mother more than God, is unworthy of
God.
Q. What say you to those who become Protestants, or
remain Protestants from motives of worldly gain or honor?
A. I say with our Saviour, in the 8th chap.
[pg. 40]
of St. Mark, "What will it avail a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?"
ON THE TRUE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST.
CHAPTER I.
Q. Can anyone be saved who is not in
the true Church?
A. No; for those who are not in the true Church,—that
is, for those who are not joined, at least, to the soul of the Church*—there
can be no hope of salvation.
Q. What says Christ upon this subject? (St. Matth.,
chap. xviii.)
A. That he who will not hear the Church, is to be reputed
as a heathen.
Q. What says St. Cyprian? (Lib. de Unit. Eccl.)
A. "That he who has not the Church for his mother,
cannot have God for his father;" and the Fathers generally
say, "that as all who were not in the ark of Noah, perished in the
waters of the deluge; so shall all perish, who are without the pale of the
true Church."
Q. What is the meaning of the ninth article
* This question, as it regards Pagans and invincibly ignorant Christians will be treated afterwards.
[pg. 41]
of the Creed: "I believe in the holy Catholic
Church."
A. That every one should firmly believe, that to be
a member of the Catholic Church, is necessary in order to salvation.
Q. By what marks can you distinguish the true Church
from all other sects?
A. Particularly by two; 1st, Whatever pretends to be
the Church of Christ, must have been established, upwards of eighteen hundred
years ago, by Christ and his Apostles. 2d, It must have existed unceasingly
in the world from that time to the present.
Q. Why do you say that Christ's Church must have been
established more than eighteen hundred years ago?
A. Because is was Christ who established his own
true Church, and it is more than eighteen hundred years since he left the
world, to which he has never since visibly returned.
Q. Why do you say that a church, to be the true Church
of Christ, must have perpetually existed, without any interruption, since the
time Christ established it?
A. Simply, because Christ promised such perpetuity
to his Church.
Q. What are the words of Christ on this subject? Matth.,
xvi. chap., 18 ver.; and Matth. xxviii—20.
[pg. 42]
A. "Thou art Peter, and upon this
rock I will build by church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it;" and, "Go, therefore, teach all nations . . . .and lo! I am
with you all days, even to the consummation of the world."
Q. How does St. Paul speak of the Church of
Christ? (1 Tim., iii. chap.)
A. He calls her the pillar and ground of truth.
Q. Were it true that the Church had in reality
fallen into idolatry, what inference would you draw from that fact?
A. That Christ was an unskilled architect and a
false prophet; because he must then have built his Church, not upon a rock,
but upon sand, like that stupid architect of whom he himself speaks—Matth.
chap. viii.; and because the gates of hell would then have really prevailed
against the Church in spite of his prediction.
Q. What conclusion do you draw from all this?
A. That Christ established a Church; that that
Church has existed in every age; that she exists at present; that she never
could, and never can, fall into any error dangerous to salvation on matters of
faith or morality; that every one, in fine, is bound with a firm and
[pg. 43]
unshaken faith to believe what she teaches, because her doctrines are, like those of her Divine Master, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.
Q. In what Church do you find those
two certain marks of truth, of which you have spoken?
A. In the Catholic Church, and in no other.
Q. Was she established eighteen hundred years ago?
A. Yes; for no man has ever yet been able to date
her origin from any later period.
Q. Has she existed always, without even the least
interruption, during that time?
A. Yes; and no one has ever ventured to point out
such interruption, or how long, if it took place at all, such interruptions
lasted.
Q. How does St. Augustine establish this necessary
antiquity and perpetuity of the Church up to his own time? (Epist. a Gener.)
A. He proves it by the uninterrupted succession of Roman
Pontiffs, whose names he gives, one after the other, for the complete period,
to the number of thirty-nine.
Q. How many Popes have governed the Church from St.
Peter to the present Pontiff, Pius IX. inclusively.
A. Two hundred and fifty-seven.
[pg. 44]
Q. Are the two certain marks of the
true Church, of which you have spoken, discoverable in the Protestant Church?
A. No; neither in the Episcopal, nor Calvinistic
branch of it.
Q. How long is it since the Lutheran Church was
established?
A. About three hundred years;—Luther preached the
first Protestantism ever known in 1517; and Calvinism was first preached in
the year 1537.
Q. Where there no Lutheran or Calvinistic Churches
before these dates?
A. No; no such doctrines, nor churches, nor pastors,
nor sects, were ever known in any country prior to that time.
Q. How do you reason from these facts against your
adversaries?
A. Any church, to be the true Church, must have been
established eighteen hundred years ago; but the Episcopalian and Presbyterian
Churches are only of three hundred years duration; therefore, neither of them
can have any pretension to be the Church of Christ.
Q. May not your adversaries reply, that the Church of
the first four centuries believed as they do; that, at the end of that time,
the Church fell into superstition and idolatry; and that God judged it
necessary, after the
[pg. 45]
Church was drowned in error for eleven hundred years, to
send Luther and Calvin to reform her?
A. Yes, they may, and do advance many absurdities,
and this is one of them, which does not bring them out of their difficulties;
for Christ says, his Church cannot fail,—that the gates of hell shall never
prevail against her,—that his holy spirit shall teach her all truth FOR
EVER,—that he will abide with her ALL DAYS, even to the consummation of
the world. Therefore it is an infallible truth, that any Church to be the
Church of Christ, must have been established eighteen hundred years ago;
therefore, that Church once established, could never fail; therefore the
Protestant Church, the mere child of yesterday, cannot be the Church of
Christ; therefore her very foundation is nothing but error and blasphemy, for
she is built on the supposition, that Christ was either UNWILLING OR UNABLE to
keep his promise—a supposition which implies the most aggravated
blasphemy, tantamount to a denial of the Divinity of Christ.
Q. What question can you put to a Protestant, to which he can give no satisfactory reply?
[pg. 46]
A. Ask him where the true Church was
before the time of Luther and Calvin.
Q. May he not reply, that the Church was then invisible,
that there were Christians in every age who held the doctrines of Luther and
Calvin, but that they dared not openly profess their faith?
A. Yes; but this answer will satisfy no man of
ordinary understanding; for surely, it must be evident to every one who
thinks, that men who believed in their hearts one creed and professed another,
like these INVISIBLE Protestants, were only hypocrites, dastardly traitors to
their religion, utterly incapable of composing the holy, fearless body of the
true Church of Christ.
Q. Was not the Jewish Church for a time invisible, and
did not God say to the prophet Elias, that there were seven thousand men
concealed who had never bent he knee to Baal?
A. When the Jewish Church was invisible in the
kingdom of Israel, it was in a most flourishing state in the land of Judah;
but the Protestant Church existed in no kingdom during the years of its
invisibility, nor have we the Word of God assuring us, that there were seven
thousand invisible Protestants concealed under a cloud anywhere.
Q. Have you any other reply to make?
A. Yes; there is a very great difference be-
[pg. 47]
tween the Christian and the Jewish Church;—God
never promised that he would be with the Jewish Church all days, that
the gates of hell should not prevail against her.
Q. Have you any other way of proving that the true
Church must have been always visible?
A. If the Church had not been always visible, it
would have been impossible to obey the command of Christ—that we should hear
and obey his Church. The Church is composed of men teaching and men
taught, and are these invisible? Are preaching, public prayer, baptism, the
administration of the other sacraments, duties that can be performed
invisibly? Is not the subterfuge of an invisible Church a mere absurdity? May
not any Mormon, Millerite, or madman, declare his nostrums the true religion,
hitherto invisible, now at length revealed?
CHAPTER IV.
Q. Have our adversaries any other
reply to make to that, for them, annoying question "Where was the Church
of God before Luther's time?
A. Yes; some of them say, that the Church of Christ
was that of the Hussites, the Vaudois, and other heretics of the twelfth
century, and
[pg. 48]
that the Protestant Church is only a continuation of it
under a different name.
Q. Can this reply be sustained by argument?
A. No; for, in the first place, though the principles of these heretics
differed in some points from the Catholic faith, yet their doctrine generally
agreed with the Catholic, and differed widely from that of Luther and Calvin
Therefore, inasmuch as they held the Mass, seven sacraments, &c., they
must have been idolaters according to Protestants; and inasmuch as they held
doctrines opposed to Protestants, they cannot be considered as forming one and
the same Church. Besides, even admitting, what is not the fact, for the sake
of argument, that the Hussites, &c., were Protestants, this only makes the
Protestant sect two or three hundred years older; it leaves still twelve
hundred years of non-existence to be accounted for:—this is an awful
chasm. Where, still we ask, during this long period, was the Church of
Christ? What other prior sect of heretics can Protestants link themselves
with, in order to stretch out their existence over all these ages? None;
and if not, then still they do not form the Church of Christ; because they
cannot connect their Church in any possible way with Christ or his Apostles.
[pg. 49]
Q. What say you to those who admit that the Catholic Church was the true Church up to Luther's time, but that many errors and abuses had crept into her, which it was necessary to correct?
[pg. 50]
new creed—it is evidently not the great or the ancient, both in existence and doctrine, but the small and modern body which becomes responsible for the separation: a small portion detached from a mountain can never with propriety be called the mountain itself.
CHAPTER V.
Q. Are there any other marks of the true
Church?
A. Yes; four, enumerated in the Nicene Creed: "I
believe in One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church."
Q. Did Christ require unity in his Church?
A. He says, John, chap. x—16, that there is but
"ONE fold and ONE shepherd." St. Paul, Rom. chap,
xii—5, says: "We, being many, are ONE BODY in Christ;"
and Ephes., chap. iv: that there is but "one body, one spirit, one Lord,
one faith, one baptism." The Church, therefore, is one body or
fold, having one faith, under one shepherd.
Q. What do you conclude from this?
A. That no Church can be the Church of Christ which has not
this oneness or unity.
Q. Is the Protestant Church one?
A. On principle It cannot be one; for its first principle—"private
interpretation"—has
[pg. 51]
ever produced, and will ever produce, necessarily, schisms and
divisions; each one, learned or ignorant, interprets according to his peculiar
light or interest.
Q. Is the Protestant Church one in its government?
A. No; it has for its head, the King in Prussia, the Queen or
State in England; and in Scotland, the government is various, according to the
whims of the various sects.
Q. Is the Catholic Church one in her government?
A. Yes; all the Catholics in the world are subject to their
priests, these priests are subject to their bishops, and these bishops are
appointed by, and subject to, Peter's lawful successor in the See of Rome.
Q. Is the Protestant Church one in her faith?
A. She has one faith in England and another in Scotland, a
third in Switzerland, and a fourth in Prussia. The Free Kirk of Scotland
holds as damnable, what the Established Kirk believes to be good and true; and
the Puseyite believes what the English Church repudiates. In one Protestant
Church, bishops, and ordination by bishops, are believed to be necessary; in
another they are rejected. One Protestant body believes in the real presence;
and anoth-
[pg. 52]
er, in a bare and empty memorial. All the minor
Protestant sects are in the same melancholy predicament,—they differ from one
another on some or many essential points.
Q. Is the Catholic Church one in her faith?
A. All the Catholics in the world have one and the same
creed. Amongst Catholics there are no sects—no Church of Scotland,
or England, or France: All Catholics believe the same
truths, and to reject any one of these truths, is to cut one's self off from the
Catholic communion. The Catholic Church is the Church, not of any nation,
but of the world.
Q. Is the Protestant Church one in her moral doctrines?
A. No; one sect of Protestants believes in predestination,
in salvation by faith alone; and another sect of Protestants holds the
necessity of good works and free will, whilst they denounce the above
Calvinistic principles, as leading directly to the most debasing immorality.
Q. Is the Catholic Church one In her moral principles?
A. All Catholics follow the same moral principles,—the same
vices are denounced on the one hand, and the same virtues inculcated on the
other.
[pg. 53]
Q. Is the Protestant discipline
everywhere the same?
A. It is different in every country and every sect.
Q. Is the Catholic Church one on this head?
A. The Catholic Church is strictly uniform on every essential
matter of discipline, whether that regard the pastors or the people;—the same
great feasts and fasts are everywhere observed.
Q. Is the Protestant Church one in her Liturgy or
public service?
A. No; on this she exhibits the most absurd
contrariety;—Scotland worships God in one way, England in another, Geneva in a
third, Prussia in a fourth, Sweden in a fifth, and wherever a handful of
Protestants can be assembled together, they strike out a service for themselves,
according to their particular views.
Q. Is the Catholic Liturgy everywhere uniform?
A. The same great sacrifice of the Mass, and
essentially in the same words, is everywhere offered; the same seven sacraments
are everywhere administered in the same manner; even the forms of the public
service are everywhere essentially the same.
[pg. 54]
Q. What inference do you draw from all
this?
A. That the Protestant Church is a house divided against
itself,—that it is not one, but manifold; therefore, it is not the
Church of Christ:—That the Catholic Church is one strictly in every sense of
the word; and, consequently, that as it is the only Church on earth which has
perfect unity, it is unquestionably the one true Church of Christ.
Q. Are not Protestants one, because they all follow the
Bible?
A. On the contrary, it is the Bible, abused by the principle
of private interpretation, which occasions all their errors, heresies, and
schisms. The Prussian Mucker teaches his filthy principles from the Bible; the
silly Mormon palms his nostrums on the Bible; the execrable Socialist proves his
brutalities from the Bible; the Millerite extracts Millerism from the Bible;—in
a word, Methodists, Baptists, Quakers, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians,—
all pervert God's Word in order to make it support their jarring and
contradictory systems and they do this with as much assurance, as if God could
teach that black is white, or that a thing may be black and white at the same
time. Thus, amongst the Presbyterians of Scotland, one sect teaches that Church
patronage is
[pg. 55]
damnable, whilst another teaches that it is a good thing.
CHAPTER VI.
Q. What is the second mark of the true
Church?
A. Holiness or sanctity.
Q. Does it appear from Scripture, that Christ's Church
should be holy?
A. The prophet Isaiah calls her,—Isa. chap xxxv, 8,—"a
way which shall be called THE HOLY WAY, over which the unclean shall not
pass." David,—Ps xcii, 5,—says: "Holiness becomes thy house,
O Lord, for length of days. St. Paul,—Eph. v, 25,—declares, that
"Christ loved the Church and delivered himself for it, that he might
sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water and the word of life, that he
might present it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or
any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish." See also
Tit. ii, 14, and I Peter, ii, 9.
Q. Is the Protestant Church holy in her pastors?
A. No; to this she call have no pretension; her pastors are
mere men of the world, not subjected to the restraints of Apostolic poverty,
chastity, mortification. The burden of their
[pg. 56]
religious duty seems to be, the mere preaching of a sermon or
two upon Sunday; whilst most of their time must be employed, not in Apostolic
duties, but in looking after their own worldly interest, and that of their wives
and children.
Q. Is the Catholic Church holy in her pastors?
A. They are all separated from the world and its
gratifications, and dedicated entirely to God's glory and the sanctification of
souls;—no worldly cares intrude upon them;—the Church is their spouse, and
the people their spiritual children;—they are ever, in a variety of ways,
employed in the spiritual improvement of their flock;—they watch with tender
care, from the cradle to the grave, those committed to their charge;—and, as
they have no wives or families to provide for, their hearts are in their duties;
and whatever of this world's goods they may possess, is employed for the glory
of God.
Q. Are there any means of Holiness in the Protestant
Church?
A. No; they have destroyed them all, they have rejected the
soul of religion in rejecting the holy sacrifice of the Mass, and five of the
sacraments, all abundant sources of grace, as you shall afterwards see, where
the subjects are treated; and even the two sacraments which
[pg. 57]
they still retain, are by them reduced to mere empty forms—the
mere giving of a name, and partaking of a little bread and wine.
Q. Has the Catholic Church means of holiness?
A. Yes; the most abundant, in the holy sacrifice of the Mass
and the seven sacraments, which are all so many channels, through which the
graces which flow from the wounds of our redeemer are conveyed to the souls of
Catholics of every class, in every condition, and at every period of life, from
the time they enter this world, until they render their souls into the hands of
God.
Q. Is the Protestant Church holy in her doctrines?
A. The very contradictory nature of the various moral
doctrines, taught by the ever varying sects of Protestants, must, of itself, be
ruinous to holiness. But what places the unholiness of her doctrines
beyond all doubt, is her doctrine on predestination, on free will, her belief
that faith alone is necessary, and that good works are useless; for who,
believing such absurdities as these, can have any motive to avoid vice or
practice virtue? Holiness is incompatible with these immoral principles.
Q. Is the Catholic Church holy in her doctrines?
[pg. 58]
A. She teaches her children to believe all
that God has revealed, and to practice all that he has commanded;—multitudes
of Catholics, not content with observing the precepts, practise even the
counsels of the Gospel. Fasting, mortification, unremitting prayer, self-denial,
and a frequent participation of the sacraments, all of which are so pressingly
recommended in the Scripture, are enjoined and practised by the whole Church,
from the sovereign pontiff down to the humblest member of Christ's mystical
body.
Q. Were there, in consequence of these holy means and holy
doctrines, many members of the Catholic Church illustrious for sanctity?
A. Yes; multitudes, and of every class, from the king to the
mendicant, and from the Pope to the deacon.
Q. Have even adversaries admitted this?
A. Yes; the Apology for the Confession of Augsburg, Art. 13,
declares, that St. Bernard, St. Francis, and St. Bonaventure, were saints; even
the Calendar of the Church of England admits others; and almost all our saints
are admitted by the Puseyite section of the English Church.
Q. In what Church did these admitted saints live and die?
[pg. 59]
A. In the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman
Church.
Q. What do you conclude from this?
A. That as one can be sanctified through Christ in the
Catholic Church, so he can certainly be saved in the same Church; and if he can
be saved in this Church, it must be the true Church, and he can be saved in no
other; for Christ did not establish two Churches. There is only one baptism,
one fold, one shepherd, one revelation, containing one true set of
doctrines.
Q. Did God ever work miracles to testify the sanctity of a
Catholic?
A. Even enemies admit that he did. That he wrought miracles
by the hand of St. Francis Xavier, is allowed by Baldeus, Hackluit, and
Tavernier, all rigid Lutherans and Calvinists. Now, St. Francis was a Catholic
Priest; and hence the Catholic religion, which, by the aid of these miracles, he
taught and propagated, must be the true religion, since God could not give the
testimony of his Almighty hand to error.
CHAPTER VII.
Q. What is the third mark of the true
Church?
A. Catholicity or universality.
[pg. 60]
Q. Is this mark evidently required by
Scripture?
A. According to Scripture, the Catholic Church must be
universal in three ways,—universal as to time, universal as to place,
and universal as to doctrine.
Q. Where do you find that she must be universal as to
time?
A. In Isaiah. lxii, 6—"Upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, I
have appointed watchmen all the day and all the night, they shall NEVER hold
their peace." Isa. ix, 7—" Of the increase of this government
and peace....there SHALL BE NO END." He shall sit upon the throne of David
"to order it, and establish it,....from henceforth EVEN FOR
EVER." In John, xiv, 16 —"I will ask the Father, and he shall
give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever."
Q. Where do you find universality, as to place, laid down
in Scripture?
A. In Malachi, i, 11—"From the rising of the sun to
the going down thereof, my name is great amongst the Gentiles."
Ps. xxi, 28 —"All the ends of the earth shall remember, and shall
be converted to the Lord." Ps. ii, 8—Ask of me, and I will give the
Gentiles for this inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for
thy possession." Luke, xxiv,
[pg. 61]
46—"That penance and remission of sins should be
preached in his name among all nations." Acts, i, 8—"And
ye shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even
to the uttermost parts of the earth."
Q. Is there any passage of Scripture, in which the above
three kinds of universality are clearly laid down, as necessary qualities of the
true Church?
A. Yes; in the commission given by Christ to his Apostles—Matth.
xxviii, 19, 20—"Going, therefore, teach ye all nations;....teaching
them to observe all things, whatsoever I have commanded you; and, behold,
I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." Here
you have, from the lips of Christ himself, an express attestation, that his
Church will be Catholic or universal as to time, place, and doctrine.
Q. Is the Protestant Church universal in these these ways?
A. No; nor in any one of them. She is not universal as to
time; for a few centuries back she had no existence; she is little more than
three hundred years old. A Church is composed of pastors and people,
teaching and believing certain doctrines, and no such body holding Protestant
doctrines was known in
[pg. 62]
the world for fifteen hundred years after Christ left it. She is not universal either as to numbers or place; even the Greek Church is before her in numbers; and on this head she cannot bear a comparison with the Catholic Church. According to the Scientific Miscellany, the total number of Protestants in the world is 48,985,000; the total number of Greeks is 56,360,000; whilst the number of Catholics is 254,655,000; that is, the Catholics are nearly six to one. But if we take each Protestant Church by itself, and this is the true point of comparison, (for these Protestant Churches all differ from one another,) we will find, then, that Catholics are to Presbyterians as sixty-five to one, and to the Church of England as thirty-six to one. Hence, it is not only incorrect, but ludicrous, to call any of these Protestant sects Catholic or universal. Neither can they be called universal as to place; for Protestants are confined to a small corner of the earth, as will be evident, by the following statistical account, from the above authority.
|
EUROPE. |
ASIA. |
AFRICA. |
|
| Catholics, .... |
154,444,600 |
40,000,000 |
12,400,000 |
| Protestants, ... |
39,675,000 |
50,000 |
10,000 |
|
AMERICA. |
OCEANICA. |
|
| Catholics, .... |
34,110,000 |
3,450,000 |
| Protestants, ... |
9,150,000 |
50,000 |
[pg. 63]
These statistics are the most decisive proof that the
Protestant is not true Church of all nations, she is not even the Church of any
one nation, no, nor of even one parish exclusively on the face of the earth. In
fine, she is not universal as to doctrine, either as to extent or truth; for she
has taught, and does teach, many evident errors, such as predestination, the
rejection of free will and good works, and the impossibility of keeping the
commandments. And as to the teaching of all truth, she can have no
pretension to it, since each Protestant sect has its peculiar doctrines;—scarcely
two of them have the same creed. They even rejected, as apocryphal, at one time,
whole books of the sacred Scripture, which they now admit—they reject to-day
what they taught yesterday. Indeed, in point of doctrine, whether moral,
dogmatical, or disciplinary, they present only one confused and revolting mass
of contradictions, contrarieties, and absurdities.
Q. Is the Catholic Church universal in the above three
ways?
A. No one will dare to deny that she is the Church of all
ages. She is the only Church upon earth that can be visibly traced back
through every age to the time of Christ. She is the Church of all nations, as is
evident from the above statistical argument,—there is not
[pg. 64]
a Christian,—nay, scarcely a Pagan—nation that does not attest her actual presence, or, by noble monuments, her former greatness;—her ancient canon law is still, in a great measure, the law of Scotland, as it is the foundation of the law of France, and the whole civil law of Europe and America;—her noble temples and colleges, dedicated to the living God, are still the pride of England;—the ruined monastic establishments and glorious cathedrals, that once adorned every country of Europe, have survived the Vandal hand of barbarous reform, as ever-enduring monuments, to perpetuate the history of Catholic greatness. Protestantism has never converted even one Pagan nation whilst every people that have been brought to the knowledge and worship of the true God, professing that they owe their conversion to the Catholic Church, loudly proclaim her universality;—everywhere her incense ascends;—everywhere her sacraments are administered, everywhere her pure sacrifice is offered. To her alone did the Prophet speak, when he said. "I will give the nations for thine inheritance, and the ends of the earth for thy possession." In fine, she is universal as to her doctrine;—it is everywhere the same;—it has, like the pure gold, passed through the ordeal of eighteen hundred years' examination, unchangeable and un-
[pg. 65]
changed; the combined efforts of heresy and infidelity against
it have been unavailing. She teaches her children to observe all that God
has commanded, and to believe all that he has revealed: her doctrine is, like
her Divine founder, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.
Q. What says St. Augustine on the word Catholic?
A. "The very name of Catholic," he says,
"keeps me in the Church. Heretics have done their utmost to obtain that
name, yet they have never been able to succeed. If a stranger, on entering
any city, were to ask, 'where is the Catholic Church?' no heretic would dare to
point out his heretical conventicle." (Tom. vi, Contra. Ep. Fund.
chap. 4.)
Q. Give us Saint Jerom's words, contra Lucif.
A. "When you see any body inherit its name from a
particular man, as the Marcionites from Marcion, the Valentinians from
Valentinus," (we may add the Lutherans from Luther, the Calvinists from
Calvin,) "you may look on that body, not as the Church of Christ but as the
school of Antichrist."
Q. Give us a good reason why your name of Catholic is the
best proof that you are in the true Church.
A. Those who remained in communion with
[pg. 66]
the ancient body of the faithful retained the ancient name,
whilst innovators gave to their followers either their own name, or one derived
from their peculiarly novel doctrine, or from the country in which this new
creed made its first appearance. Thus the Lutherans, the Calvinists, the Church
of England, the Methodists, the Quakers, the Moravians, show, by their very
names, the human origin of their religion.
Q. What inference do you draw from all that you have said
on this mark of Catholicity?
A. That the Scripture expressly requires, in the true Church,
universality as to time, place, and doctrine; that the Protestant Church is not
universal in any of these three ways; that the Catholic Church is the only
Church upon earth that has this triple universality, and, consequently, that it
is the true Church of Christ.
CHAPTER VIII.
Q. What is the fourth mark of the true
Church?
A. Apostolicity.
Q. What do you mean by that word?
A. That any Church pretending to he the Church of Christ,
must be able to trace her
[pg. 67]
doctrine, her orders, all her mission, to the
Apostles of Christ.
Q. Why should this be the case?
A. Because, during all the time the Church has existed, there
must have been true pastors "For the work of the ministry, for the
edification of the body of Christ,"—Ephes. chap. iv. "Upon thy
walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen....they shall never hold their
peace,"—Isa. lxii, 6. These pastors must have been lawfully sent;
for "no man taketh the honor of the priesthood upon himself, but he that is
called by God as Aaron was,"—Heb. v, 4, Thus, Christ sent the Apostles;
these Apostles sent others,—for example, Paul and Barnabas; and again, Paul
sent Timothy and Titus; and, in this manner, each succeeding generation of
pastors was sent by the preceding from Christ to the present time; and the
generation of pastors giving their commission to their successors, did it, by
the power of Christ originally given, in these words: "As my Father hath
sent me, I also send you." In fine, the pastors of every age must have
been ordained, according to that of St. Paul to Titus—Chap. i, 5: "For
this cause I left thee in Crete, that thou shouldst set in order the things that
are wanting, and shouldst ordain priests in every city, as I also appointed
thee."
[pg. 68]
Q. May not be said that the Protestant
Church is Apostolical in her doctrine, seeing that she adopts the Scripture as
her rule?
A. If she were, all Protestants would teach the same truths;
and surely no man in his senses will assert, that either the Apostles or the
Scripture could teach all the contradictory and absurd creeds of
Protestantism. Besides, for fourteen hundred years after the last of the
Apostles left this world, Protestant doctrines were unknown amongst mankind.
Q. Is the Catholic Church Apostolic in her doctrine?
A. Even our adversaries admit this in spite of themselves;
for whilst they unwittingly admit that we were the first Church, they as
uniformly maintain that Popery is unchangeable. We teach the same doctrine
now which was taught in every century and country since the time of Christ; our
doctrines cannot be traced to any man or set of men, to any particular country
or date, posterior to the time of the Apostles, we defy our adversaries to trace
it to any but Apostolic authority. Besides, we are the only Church that has
existed in every age, since :he Apostolic times.
Q. Is not the Protestant Church Apostolic as to mission?
A. Certainly not; Luther was the first Prot-
[pg. 69]
estant minister the world ever saw. By whom was he sent?
Not by God; for he never wrought one miracle to prove it, and his life was such
as to prove that he was sent by an opposite authority. Not by the
Apostles; for he came fifteen hundred years too late to have any connection with
them. Not by the Catholic Church; for she cut him off from her communion,
and she could not give a commission to teach error directly opposed to her own
creed. No Protestant Church existed prior to his time from which he could
receive a commission; therefore he had no mission; therefore all his followers,
in the heretical and schismatical body to which he gave being, are missionless
intruders, who pay no regard to the words of St. Paul; "How shall they
preach unless they be sent?"—Rom. x. Of such as they, the Almighty
says,—Jer, xxiii, 21:—"I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I
have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied." It is incumbent upon them to
show that they are not the thieves and robbers mentioned by St. John, chap, x.
Q. Is the Catholic Church Apostolic as to mission?
A. The Catholic Church alone, has, beyond all doubt, existed
in every age, from the present till the Apostolic age. Hence, her pastors
are
[pg. 70]
the only pastors on earth, who can trace their mission from
priest to bishop, and from bishop to Pope, back through every century, until
they trace that mission to the Apostles, who were commissioned by Christ
himself. We have a complete list of an uninterrupted chain of Roman
Pontiffs, reaching from the present Pontiff, Pius the 9th, to St. Peter. We have
lists of all the Catholic sees in the world, and the names of the bishops who,
in every age, occupied them; so that we have an unbroken succession of bishops
ruling, teaching, and adorning every age and clime, all these in strict
communion with the chief see, that of Rome.
Q. Is the Protestant Church Apostolic as to orders?
A. The fact is, they have no orders at all, nor do many of
them even pretend to have orders. The ministers of the various Calvinistic
sects, as well as those of all other reformed sects not Lutheran, are mere
laymen. The Lutherans, generally, can have no orders; because they have
never had a regular succession of validly ordained bishops from whom they
could receive orders. As to the orders of the Church of England, they are,
to say the least, extremely doubtful; because it has never been proved, that the
first Protestant bishop of the
[pg. 71]
Church of England was himself validly ordained or consecrated,
and because the true form or ordination was not in use in the Church of England
during one hundred and twelve years. But granting that they really are validly
ordained, they nave no mission, and hence they can be reputed only as so
many suspended, schismatical, and heretical priests. In fine, as the whole
fabric of Protestantism is only three hundred and thirty-two years old, it is
manifest, that her ministers cannot trace their Orders to the Apostolic times.
Q. Are the orders of the Catholic priesthood Apostolic?
A. They can be traced from priest to bishop, and from bishop
to Pope, through every century back to the time of the Apostles. Indeed, a
perpetual succession of Catholic pastors has always existed; and hence, so
little doubt is there even amongst Protestants on this subject, that the Church
of England, by claiming her orders from us, clearly and unequivocally admits the
Apostolicity of the orders of the Catholic Church.
Q. What inference do you draw from all this?
A. That the Protestant Church is not, and the Catholic Church
is, the true Church of Christ.
[pg. 72]
Q. Why this conclusion?
A.
CHAPTER I.
Q. Is it possible to be saved without Divine faith?
A. No; for St. Paul, in his Epistle to the[pg. 73]
Hebrews, chap. xi, says—"Without faith, it is impossible to please God."
Q. What two particular qualities must faith have that it may be divine?
A. It must be firm and undoubting; and must be PRUDENTLY firm and undoubting?
Q. Why firm and undoubting?
A. Because, otherwise, it will not be divine faith, but mere human opinion. Divine faith is incompatible with doubt; rather than call the smallest particle into doubt, we must be ready to lay down our lives; for God, the author of faith, cannot deceive.
Q. Why do you say that faith must be prudently firm?
A. Because, no matter how strong and firm the inward conviction be, if it be irrational—that is, grounded on false reasoning—it is not a virtue, but rather the effect of a vicious, because willful, obstinacy; such is the faith of the Turk, and the Heretic of every sect.
Q. Where do you find the two above-mentioned conditions of divine faith?
A. Only amongst Catholics; because they only follow a rule of faith, which places the truth of their belief beyond the possibility of doubt.
Q. What is that which you call a rule of faith?[pg. 74]
A. That which guides us to the belief and practice of all that God has revealed and commanded.
Q. What is the Catholic rule of faith?
A. The whole Word of God, understood infallibly in its true sense.
Q. Is not the written word of God alone a sufficient rule of faith?
A. No; because it is susceptible of different senses, and the interpreter may give it a wrong sense. Hence, that it may be to us an infallible rule of true faith, we must be absolutely certain that we understand the disputed passages correctly.
Q. Have Catholics on this head any certainty?
A. Their certainty is entire, because they receive from the Church, which they prove to be infallible, the exposition of the Scripture.
Q. Have not Protestants this same certainly?
A. No; for each Protestant explains the Scripture according to his own particular light, or fancy, or prejudice. Hence, he can never be certain that he is right, as he can never be absolutely certain that he is not deceived in his interpretation.
Q. What does St. Peter say to the faithful in his 2d Epistle, chap. i. 20?[pg. 75]
A. That they should all understand, "that no prophecy of Scripture is made by private interpretation;" and after denouncing sects and heresies and crimes, in order to show that private interpretation is the cause of them, he adds, in the last chapter, that certain things in St. Paul's Epistles are hard to be understood "which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction."
CHAPTER II.
Q. Show us, more at length, why those who are not Catholics, can have no other than a doubting or vacillating faith?
A. It is, because there are three essential points, upon which they have no real certainty. In the first place, they have no real certainty as to the canon of Scripture; secondly, they can have none as regards their versions or translations of Scripture; and, thirdly, they can never be certain that their interpretations are the genuine meaning of God's word.
Q. Why cannot Protestants know, with infallible certainty, what books of Scripture are canonical and divine?
A. Because they profess to believe nothing but what is expressly laid down in Scripture.[pg. 76]
Now the Scripture does not tell us what books are canonical,—that is, what, and how many, books are God's divine word; this is admitted even by the most learned Protestants.
Q. Cannot they know the books that are divine, by their excelling beauty and thrilling expression, as you know honey or sugar by their sweetness?
A. No; for if that could be, then all Protestants would have acknowledged the same books as canonical, and yet we know they have not agreed upon this point. The first Protestants rejected the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse or Revelations, whilst the Protestants of the present day receive these books as divine. Calvin called the Epistle of St. James, an Epistle of gold, whilst Luther styled the same, an Epistle of straw.
Q. May they not say, that they know the canonical books by their titles?
A. If we must receive the Gospel of St. Matthew, because it bears his name, we should, for the same reason, receive the Gospels of St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew, because they bear the names of these Apostles, and yet all Christians reject these two Gospels as Apocryphal.
Q. May they not say, that they receive the[pg. 77]
true books of Scripture on the authority of tradition?
A. No; they reject tradition, on every other question, as a doubtful source of truth; hence, every doctrine drawn from it must be, for them, uncertain. Divine faith, they say, cannot rest on tradition as a foundation; if, therefore, they know what books are divine only from tradition, it evidently follows that they do not, and cannot, believe these books to be God's word with divine faith.
Q. What happened at Strasbourg in the year 1598?
A. The Protestants expunged from their canon of Scripture, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistle of St. James, and the Apocalypse; and seventy-four years after, they again replaced them. This fact may be seen in their old Ritual, in the chapter ON DOCTRINE, and in the new Ritual, page 7.
Q. What do you conclude from this?
A. That they were all certainly wrong, either in expunging or receiving these books; that if they were evidently wrong in a matter of such awful importance as is the integrity of the Scripture, they can have no certainty that they are right in any thing; that, in fine, their faith resting thus, not upon any rational or certain foundation, but on the mere whims of men,[pg. 78]
cannot be prudently firm, and, by a necessary consequence, cannot be divine faith.
CHAPTER III.
Q. Why have you said, that those who are not Catholics, can never be certain that their translations from the original Scriptures are correct or faithful?
A. Because few, if any of them, understand the original languages; so that they are incapable of judging whether their translations are conformable to the originals.
Q. May they not reply, that they have every necessary security from their translators, whose knowledge of Greek and Hebrew was indisputable?
A. No; for these translators have given very different and contradictory versions; and how, in this case, are men of ordinary education to know which to adopt?
Q. What did Zwinglius say of Luther's translation of the New Testament?
A. He said, that Luther had corrupted the Word of God.
Q. What said Luther of that of Zwinglius?
A. He called it the work of fools, asses, and Antichrists.[pg. 79]
Q. Did Beza give an opinion on the version of Œcolampadius, published at Bale?
A. Yes; he declared it impious, and opposed to the Spirit of God. The English declared the version of Geneva, the worst and the most unfaithful that had appeared.
Q. What does Luther himself avow as regards translations of Scripture?
A. That he had added the word "ONLY" to the text of St. Paul, (chap; iii, to the Rom.,) for "we account a man to be justified by faith," he has, "by faith ONLY."
Q. How did he justify himself when reproached with this? (Tom. iii, Edit. de Jena, pp. 141, 144.)
A. "I know well," he says, "that the word only is not to be found in the text of St. Paul; but if any Papist plague you on the subject, tell him at once, that it was the will of Dr. Martin Luther that it should be added; and please to say further, that a Papist and an ass are one and the same thing." "I am sorry,''; says he, in addition, "that I have not added other words. This word 'ONLY' will remain in my New Testament, until all the Papists burst themselves with spite."
Q. What do you conclude from this?
A. That no prudent man can have any confidence in a Protestant Bible, since he can never[pg. 80]
be certain that it is properly translated. The English versions are of the same stamp with the German. (See D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature, Edit. 1843, vol. iii, p. 530, et. seq.) Hence, Butler (Hudibras) says:
"Religion spawned a various rout,
Of petulant, capricious sects,
The maggots of corrupted texts."
Q. Can you draw any further inference?
A. Yes; that the faith of Protestants, grounded as it is on doubtful versions of Scripture, is not prudently firm, and, consequently, is not divine.
Q. But have the Catholics themselves an absolute certainty as to the number of the sacred books, and the truth of the translations from them?
A. Yes; the Catholics are perfectly certain as regards both points. The Church points out the books that are canonical, and the correct versions of these books. Now, a fundamental principle of the Catholic religion is, that the Church is infallible; because Christ says—"the gates of hell shall not prevail against her;—that He will be with her all days;—that His holy Spirit will teach her all truth for ever." Hence, the Catholic grounds his faith on what is certainly God's word, and his faith, consequently is certainly divine.[pg. 81]