A MISCONCEPTION OF PROTESTANTISM.
AS showing how little even great and learned men in the world know of religious movements and their nature one only needs to read, "The Church in the Twentieth Century, by the Hon. David J. Brewer, justice of the Supreme Court of the United States." He predicts a roseate future. One of his reasons are thus stated:— It is not unworthy of notice either that the ancient enemies, Catholicism and Protestantism, are drawing closer to each other. The prelates and members of the two churches do not hesitate to affiliate in a thousand forms of labor. . . . The time is past when the Protestant should look back upon the horrible things of the inquisition and denounce Roman Catholicism on account thereof, or the Catholic, on the other hand, look back at the hanging of the witches, or the persecution of the Quakers, and denounce Protestantism therefor, but each should shake hands and join in a common effort to further the cause of a common Master. As to the things noted in the first two sentences, they are true, and it is sad that they are; for it means that Protestantism is the moving body. All that Rome inclines toward Protestantism is in policy not principles. In all that Protestantism moves toward Rome it is a sacrifice of the essential principles of Protestantism, of the principles which gave existence and life to the Protestant bodies. Protestantism in her origin, according to the historian, was based upon these principles:— The principles contained in this celebrated protest of the 19th April, 1529, constitute the very essence of Protestantism. Now this protest opposes two abuses of man in matters of faith: the first is the intrusion of the civil magistrate, and the second is the arbitrary authority of the church. Instead of these two abuses, Protestantism sets up above the magistrate the power of conscience; and above the visible church the authority of the Word of God. It declines, in the first place, the civil power in divine things, and says with the prophets and apostles: We must obey God rather than man. In presence of the crown of Charles the Fifth it uplifts the crown of Jesus Christ. But it goes further; it lays down the principle, that all human teaching should be subordinate to the oracles of God. Even the primitive church, by recognizing the writings of the apostles, had performed an act of submission to this supreme authority, and not an act of authority, as Rome maintains; and the establishment of a tribunal charged with the interpretation of the Bible, had terminated only in slavishly subjecting man to man in that which should be the most unfettered—conscience and faith. In this celebrated act of Spire no doctor appears, and the Word of God reigns alone. Never has man exalted himself like the pope; never have men kept in the background like the Reformers. A Romish historian maintains that the word Protestant signifies enemy of the emperor and of the pope. If by this it is meant that Protestantism, in matters of faith, rejects the intervention both of the empire and of the papacy, it is well. Even this explanation, however, does not exhaust the meaning of the word, for Protestantism rejected the authority of man solely to place Jesus Christ on the throne of the church and His Word in the pulpit. There has never been anything more positive and at the same time more aggressive, than the position of the Protestants at Spire. By maintaining that their faith is alone capable of saving the world, they defended with intrepid courage the rights of Christian Proselytism. We can not abandon this Proselytism without deserting the Protestant principle.—History of the Reformation, D'Aubigne, book 13, chapter 6. Roman Catholicism at the time of the origin of Protestantism was the very opposite of what these principles demanded; she was indeed the impersonation of the principles against which the Reformers protested. She stood for a union of Church and State; she stood for the Inquisition; she stood for the persecutions of the Dark Ages, and she stands for all these now, because, not only are they hers by inheritance, but she is the avowed defender of all the principles and methods and deeds of that church during the past. Roman Catholicism is responsible therefor. All the evils are the direct outgrowth, the logical fruitage, of the union of Church and State, of a human tribunal over conscience and faith. Given the same opportunities now, and Rome would do the same, not because her devotees are worse than other men, but to be consistent to her system and teaching they must so do. Not so with Protestantism. One mourns at the deeds done in her name. But these deeds were not the result of the principles of true Protestantism. They were and are the direct outgrowth of Roman Catholic, pagan, and fleshly principles, held in professedly Protestant bodies, contrary to the principles of true Protestantism. The principles of true Protestantism and of Roman Catholicism are as irreconcilable and antagonistic to-day as they ever were. D'Aubigne remarks: "In the first days of the Reformation, the Evangelical Church ranged itself under the throne of Jesus Christ, and the Roman Church under the scepter of kings. Enlightened men, even among Protestants, have misunderstood this double nature of Protestantism and popery." And more than ever they do to-day. The words of the historian should still be heeded:— The Reformation was accomplished in the name of a spiritual principle. It had proclaimed for its teacher the Word of God; for salvation, faith; for king, Jesus Christ; for arms, the Holy Ghost; and had by these very means rejected all worldly elements. Rome had been established by the law of a carnal commandment, the Reformation by the power of an endless life. If there be any doctrine that distinguished Christianity from every other religion, it is its spirituality. A heavenly life brought down to man—such is its work; thus the opposition of the spirit of the Gospel to the spirit of the world was the great fact which signalized the entrance of Christianity among the nations. But what its Founder had separated had soon come together again; the church had fallen into the arms of the world; and this criminal union had reduced it to the deplorable condition in which it was found at the era of the Reformation. Thus one of the greatest tasks of the sixteenth century was to restore the spiritual element to its rights. The Gospel of the Reformers had nothing to do with the world and with politics. While the Roman hierarchy had become a matter of diplomacy and a court intrigue, the Reformation was destined to exercise no other influence over princes and people than that which proceeds from the Gospel of peace. If the Reformation, having attained a certain point, became untrue to its nature, began to parley and temporize with the world, and cease thus to follow up the spiritual principle that it had so loudly proclaimed, it was faithless to God and to itself. Henceforward its decline was at hand. It is impossible for a society to prosper if it be unfaithful to the principles it lays down. Having abandoned what constituted its life, it can find naught but death.—Hist. Ref., book 14, chapter 1. The war is to the end. Rome will use all her ancient and modernized weapons and plans she is permitted to use; true Protestantism can only use the Gospel of Infinite Love. O that not only Romanists but professed Protestants could see its preciousness!