Your ShelfYour Projects

ROMEWARD

17%

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 11, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 6.

Read the full edition

ROMEWARD.

By Editor

This is the trend of modern Protestantism. Says Cardinal Gibbons in reply to a question if there were many conversions to the Catholic faith (Catholic Mirror, October 28, 1893):—
“Great numbers. We keep a record, and there were, for instance, seven hundred and fifty-six last year in the diocese of Baltimore alone.”
And then, speaking of the trend toward ritualism on the part of the Methodists and Presbyterians, he thus continues:—
“The Low Church of to-day would have been regarded as High Church not many years ago, and the present High Church is as nearly Roman Catholic as imitation can make it. We should have many more conversions among Protestant ministers who would like to become priests but for one thing,—the celibacy of our clergy. There are men longing to enter the fold of Christ [the Roman Church], but they have wives and children to care for. In their hearts they are true Catholics.”
And why not unite with Rome? If the Roman Catholic Church—the Papacy—is a part of the church of Christ now, she was in the time of the Reformation; for she does not and has not changed from her principles since; in fact, she has augmented her assumptions to divinity. If she is the church of Christ now, she was then, and therefore the Reformers who called her "apostate," "apocalyptic harlot," and "antichrist," were mistaken, and Protestantism was therefore a mistake; and therefore, again, the only logical thing for Protestants to do, who believe that church to be a part of the church of Christ, is to return to the fold and renounce Protestantism as unjustifiable and wrong, and without a reason for its existence. This is the inevitable logic of the primary supposition. But, thank God, the Reformers were not mistaken, the Reformation not a mistake, the cry of the Bible and the Bible alone not empty words. True Protestants, who stand on the rock of God's word, will not go to Rome, but will protest still. Reader, what will you do?