The True Mean Between Extremes
By Editor
WE take the following from the Catholic News:— “‘Among Christians generally, if not universally, unbelief is represented as an unpardonable sin; and yet, with charming consistency, they themselves are unbelievers in the errors of other religions besides their own.’ So says that organ of ‘free thought,’ the Boston Investigator. But why does not our contemporary be more explicit, and affirm that they who deny the authority of the Catholic Church, which Christ founded, can find no haven on this side of infidelity?” Because France in its recoil from Romanism landed in infidelity, is no evidence that there is no true middle ground. It is natural for humanity to swing to extremes, and especially Gallic humanity. France, in her ignorance, groaned under the darkness of Roman Catholic superstition so long that she saw no other better way. It was the wickedness of a superstitious hierarchy, or the wickedness of selfish, unaided human reason, and France chose the latter. The true mean is that reason which is guided by God, and that faith which believes his word. Such faith and reason, or reasonable faith, is based, not on the pratings of priests, but on the word of God. That is the Protestant platform. It is of greatest value to truly regenerate hearts. It is because Protestants have endeavored to do, independent of God, what man cannot do, or have tried to engraft the Catholic theory of tradition into the Protestant vine, that they have been driven either to infidelity on the one side or Roman Catholicism on the other. The skeptical worldling finds it easy in the former way, the superstitious unregenerate in the latter. He only can be a true abiding Protestant who is a true Bible Christian. Such an one will not be wrecked on the infidel coast of Scylla, or be swallowed up by the Roman Catholic Charybdis.