OUR CATHOLIC "PROTESTANTISM."

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 10, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 57.

OUR CATHOLIC "PROTESTANTISM."

WHAT gave rise to the name "Protestant" was the famous "protest" of the German princes, presented at the Diet of Spires, April 19, 1529.

What really gave rise to the principles of Protestantism was returning to the word of God. As that protest states:—

There is no sure doctrine but such as is conformable to the word of God; that the Lord forbids the teaching of any other doctrine; that each text of the Holy Scriptures ought to be explained by other and clearer texts; that this holy Book is in all things necessary for the Christian, easy of understanding, and calculated to scatter the darkness, we are resolved, with the grace of God, to maintain the pure and exclusive preaching of his only word, such as it is contained in the biblical books of the Old and New Testament, without adding anything thereto that may be contrary to it. This word is the only truth; it is the sure rule of all doctrine and of all life, and can never fail or deceive us. He who builds on this foundation shall stand against all the powers of hell, whilst all the human vanities that are set up against it shall fall before the face of God.

Concerning this protest D'Aubigne, the Protestant historian of the Reformation, says:—

The principles contained in this celebrated protest, the 19th of 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, the arbitrary authority of the church. Instead of these abuses, Protestantism sets the power of conscience above the magistrate, and the authority of the word of God above the visible church. In the first place, it rejects 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 farther; it lays down the principle that all human teaching should be subordinate to the oracles of God. —Book 13, chap 6.

This is the origin of the name "Protestant," but the source of Protestantism is in the word of God. Martin Luther found it there when he opened the chained Bible in the monastic cell. Let it be borne in mind that the two principles stated above are the principles of Christianity,—God's word, God's word alone, without any mixture of human error or tradition, or interference of civil power. Says Dowling, in his "History of Romanism," book 2, chap. 1, page 67:—

"The Bible, I say, the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants." Nor is it of any account in the estimation of the genuine Protestant how early a doctrine originated, if it is not found in the Bible. . . . If it is not found in the sacred Scriptures, it presents no valid claim to be received as an article of his religious creed. . . . The great question at issue between Popery and Protestantism is this: Is the Bible only to be received as the rule of faith, or the Bible and tradition together? Is no doctrine to be received as matter of faith unless it is found in the Bible, or may a doctrine be received upon the mere authority of tradition, when it is confessedly not to be found in the sacred Scriptures? The whole Christian world, both nominal and real, are divided by this question into two great divisions, the consistent and true-hearted Protestant, standing upon this rock—THE BIBLE AND THE BIBLE ONLY—can admit no doctrine upon the authority of tradition; the papist and the Puseyite [the high churchmen] place tradition side by side with the Bible, and listen to its dictates with a reverence equal to or even greater than that which they pay to the Scriptures themselves; and he who receives a single doctrine on the mere authority of tradition, let him be called by what name he will, by so doing, steps down from the Protestant rock, passes over to the line which separates Protestantism from Popery, and can give no valid reason why he should not receive all the earlier doctrines and ceremonies of Romanism upon the same authority.

But from the above principles Protestantism has departed, and by her acts utterly repudiated them. We have repeatedly shown from her various creeds and authorities that she professes to hold the Bible as the rule of faith, and to repudiate the principles of Church and State union. In other words, she professedly opposes the arbitrary authority of the church, and the intrusion of the civil magistrate. But practically she has accepted both. To say nothing about government aid for religious schools, the Sunday question is sufficient for illustration. While there is no command, nor the semblance of a command, in the word of God for the observance of Sunday as the Sabbath, the church exalts the day as holy, and demands its observance as a part of Christian conduct. She not only does this, but she demands "the intrusion of the civil magistrate"—that which the Reformation opposed—to enforce Sunday observance upon those who do not regard the day sacred. In both of these principles, which "constitute the very essence of Protestantism," the great mass of Protestants stand on Roman Catholic ground. Protestantism is but a name with them. The word of God is the shuttlecock of exigency and human tradition, and the civil magistrate at the beck of a "Protestant" hierarchy is seated in the throne of God's judgment.

A confession of the unscriptural Sunday-sabbath and the arbitrary authority of the church is furnished by a recent number of the Christian Work. That paper, in its issue of November 15, 1894, has an article entitled "Dr. Wallace on Sabbath Keeping." It is a criticism on an article of Dr. Wallace's which appeared in the November Nineteenth Century, in which the writer bases Sunday observance on the fourth commandment, and takes to task those who keep their servants at work seven days in the week. Upon this the Christian Work says:—

As to all of which, while admitting at the outset the inconsistency of many Christians in exacting a full seven days' service of their servants, we think it will be seen that Mr. Wallace puts sabbath [Sunday] observance on a wrong basis; for while Sabbath observance in its spirit rests upon the fourth commandment, it is not accepted by the Christian church as requiring LITERAL obedience in form and method. This is shown by the change made to the first day of the week; by this act the church swept away the literalness of the command to the rest on one day and on one day only, viz, the seventh day.

Now it seems very clear that if Christian people can, under certain exigencies, change the rest day from Saturday to Sunday, they can by common consent—and common consent was the sole authority of the change—substitute one part of another day for an equal part of Sunday; in this way the Sabbath rest—one-seventh—will be observed in spirit, just as it is now observed in spirit in the change from Saturday to Sunday.

Now if this is not purely Roman Catholic ground, we do not know what is. What are God's commandments for if not to be literally obeyed in the true spirit of obedience? What did he say "the seventh day" for if he did not mean "the seventh day"? But if the Protestant "church" has authority to change God's command, why has not the Catholic? What more did the Catholic Church ever claim? What regard for the word of God is that which sets it aside "under certain exigencies"? And if by "common consent" the day can be changed, by the same "common consent" all sabbaths may be abolished, the Bible declared a myth, and Christianity a fraud. Out upon such trifling; but it is to this very plane that Protestantism has fallen. Says Romanism ("Abridgment of Christian Doctrine"):—

Ques.—How prove you that the church hath power to command feasts and holy days? Ans.—By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of.

Says "Protestantism" (Christian Work, see above):—

By this act [changing to the first day of the week] the church swept away the literalness of the commandto the rest on the one day and the one day only, viz., the seventh day.

If this is not flat-footed Roman Catholicism, what is? And yet it is only by such methods that Sunday keeping can be justified. It is Roman Catholicism and Sunday keeping on the one hand, or true Protestantism—Christianity—and seventh-day Sabbath keeping on the other. Christian brother or sister, reader, whoever you are, on whose side of this controversy will you stand? Is it on the rock of God's word or in the slough of human tradition?