The "Independent" and the Pope.
By Editor
The Independent of July 19 has an article on "The Pope's Appeal for Church Union." It contains many excellent things, and we would that Protestants would heed the practical suggestions therein set forth, and that the Independent itself would do likewise. The editor says: "But we tell him [the pope] that with a great price we have obtained our freedom, and we propose to stand fast to it; and that we believe that the future of the world and its present influence and power, under the guidance of the Divine Spirit, are with Protestantism rather than with Catholicism." All this in a sense is true; but Protestantism is Protestantism only so long as it stands fast to and walks in the principles laid down by the Protestants of the Reformation. We are not only to stand fast in the liberty, but we are to stand fast by walking in the liberty. The basic principles of Protestantism are God's word and God's word alone, and the absolute non-interference of the civil magistrate with things ecclesiastical. From these fundamental principles the Protestant church has wofully departed, has stepped over the line, in the words of another, which divides Protestantism from popery, and can give no valid reason why she should not accept all the papal dogmas. Herein is the weakness of so-called Protestantism at the present time. Its numerous creeds on some very vital points are diverse from the word of God. It has, in nearly all cases, when the two have come in conflict, rejected the word and held to the creed. It will do this again, and in the conflict between Roman Catholicism and the great so-called Protestant churches, he who reads the signs of the times aright, not from personal bias, but in the light of the sure word of prophecy, can see but the triumph of Rome. And yet God's true Protestants will hold to his word in spite of all the persecutions and trials of earth,—will consider a "Thus saith the Lord" more than all the customs and traditions of the fathers of the church. The acceptance or rejection of the message which they are bearing to the world,—the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ,—will prove the salvation or destruction of the generations of men now on the earth. Would that, while Protestants are boasting of their Protestantism, they would return to first principles, and be Protestants, or Christians, in deed and in truth.