Essays and Reviews
Protestantism in a Nutshell
by Orestes A. BrownsonLe Protestantisme compare au Catholicisme dans ses Rapports avec la Civilisation Europeenne
Par M. l'Abbe Jacques Balmes
Paris Debrecourt. 1842-44. 3 tomes 8vo.234 WE have seen few works written with a more just appreciation of our age thin the one before us, or so well adapted to th( present state of the controversy which we are always obliged to carry on with the enemies of the Church. Its author understands wcll the essential nature of Protestantism, and clearly and distinctly points out the proper method of meeting it under the various forms it at present assumes, and of imposing silence on its arrogant and noisy pretentions. He, does not confine hii-nself to the field of tbeolo(rical controversy, properly so called, but he meets Protestants on their own chosen ground, on the broad field of European civilization, and shows them that, under the point of view of civilization, of libertv order, and social well-bein(y Protestantism has been a total failure, and that, even in reference to this world, Catholicity has found itself as superior to it as it claims to be in regard to the world to come. He does not i-norelv vindicate Catholicity, in relation to civilization, from the ebarffes preferred aoainst it by the modern advocates of liberalism and Pro(yressism, but by a calm appeal,to history and philosophy, he shows that the opposing system has interrupted the worx of civilization which the Church was prosecutino, with vi(yor and success, and has operated solely in the interest of barbarism. In doing this, he has done a real service to the cause of truth, and we learn with pleasure that one of our friends in England has translated his work, orioinally written Si)anish. and rendered it accessible to the great body of Englis and American readers.
Such a work ,is this was much needed in our language. -NNe have, indeed, many able controversial woi,ks,-works -tdmirlble 235 ror the learning, ability, and skill of their authors ; but we have comparatively few which are adapted to the present state of the controversy with Protestants. The gretter part of those accessible to the i-nei-e Encriish reader are well adapted only to the few individuals whose hearts the grace of God has alreao'y touched, and whose faces are already set towards the Church. Truth is one and invariable, but error is variable and manifold. It is always the same truth thtt we must oppose to error, but it is seldom the same error for two successive moments to which we must oppose it. We must shoot error, as well as folly, 11 as it flies." and we must be able to shoot it under e-ver-varying and varied dis(yiiises. The works we ]-lave, excellent as they are in their way, a-id admirably fitted to guard the faithful against many of the devices of the enemy to detach them from the Church, -and to aid and instruct persons in heretical communions ivlio are virtually prepared to return to the Church, do not hit the reigning form of Protestantism ; they do not reach the seat of the disease, and are apparently written on the supposition of soundness, where there is, in fact, only rottenness. The principl(-s they assume as the basis of their refutation of Protestantism, thotio,ii nominally professed or conceded by the majority of Protestanl,.',, are not held with sufficient firmness to be used as the Foundation of an argument that is to have any practical efficacy in their conversion. They all appear to assume that Protestants as a body really mean to be Christians, and err only in regard to some of the dogmas of Christianity and tb'e method of deter@ minin(y the faith that Protestantism is a specific heresy, a distiiiet and positive form of error, like Arianism or Pelagianism; and that its adherents would regard themselves as bound to re.ject it, if proved to be repugnant to Christianity, or contrary to the Holy Scriptures. This is a natural and a charitable stipposition ; but we are sOrIT to say, that, if it was ever warrantable, it is not by anv means warrantable in our times, except as to the small number of individuals in the several sects who qre niere exceptions to the rule. Protestantism is no specific heresy is no distinct or -positive form of error, 'but error in generalt in 236 different to forms, and receptible of tny form or of all forms, at suits the convenience or the exigency of its friends. It is a N,er- it,-tble Proteus, and takes any and every shape judged to be proper to deceive the eyes or to elude, the blows of the chainpions of truth. It is Lutheran, Calvinistic, Arminian, Unitai-ia:u. Pantheistic, Atheistic, Pyrrhonisti,-., each by turns or all at once. as is necessary to its purpose. The Protestant az such has, in the ordinary sense, no principles to maintain, no character to support, no consistency to preserve; and we are aware of no authority, no law, no usage, by which he will consent to be bound. Convict him from tradition, and he appeals to the Bible; convict him from the Bible, and he appeals to reason; convict him from reason, and he al) eals to private sentiment; convict him from @ p private sentiment, and he appeals to skepticism, or ffies back tc reason, to Scripture, or tradition, and alternately from one to the other,-iiever scrupling to affirm, one moment, what he denied the moment before, nor blushing to be found maintaining, that, of contradictories, both may be true. He is indifferent as to what he asserts or denies, if able for the moment to, obtain an apparent covert from his pursuers.
Protestants do not study for the truth, and are never to be presumed willing to accept it, unless it chances to be where and what they wish it. They occasionally read our books and listen to our arguments, but rarely to ascertain our doctrines, or to learn what we are able to say against them or for ourselves. The thought, that we ffiay possibly be irigb@ seldom occurs to them; and when it does, it is instantly suppressed as an evil thought, as a temptation from the Devil. They take it for granted, tbit, against us, they are right, and cannot be wrong. This is with them a 11 fixed fact," admitting no question. They condescend to consult our writing.-, or to listen to our argument-;, only to ascertain what doctrines they can profess, or what modifications they can introduce into those llvhich they have professed, that will best enable them to elude our attacks, or give them the appearance of escaping conviction by the authorit.@s from tradition Scripture,, reason, an(] sentiment which we at'rav airain-,t them. 237 IC-kn4or or ingenuousness towards themselves even is a thing wholiv forei(en to their Protestant nature, ind they are instiiietivelv and habitually eavillers and sophis'@icators. They disdain to ai@ytie a question on its inerits, and always, if they argue at all, argue it on some uiiiiiiportait collatei-.tl. They never recog Dize,-unless it is for their interest to do so-any distinction between a transeat and a concedo, and rarely fail to Insist that the concession of an irrelevant point is a concession of the iiitin issue. They have no sense of responsibleness, no loyalty to truth, no mental chastity, no intellectual sincerity. What is for them is authority which no body must question; what is against them is no authority at all. Their own word if not in their favor, they refuse to accept; and the authority to which they professedly appeal they repudiate the moment it is seen not to sustain them. To reason with them as if they would stand by their own professions, or could or would acknowledge any authority but their own ever-varyidg opinions,. is entirely to mistake them, and to betray our own simplicity.
Undoubtedly, many of our friends, who have.not, like ourselves, been brought up Protestant,,, and have not to blush at the knowledge their Protestant experience has given them, may feel that in this jud(yment we are rash and uncharitable. Wou!d that we were so. We take no pleasure in thinking ill of any portion of our fellow-rneii, and would always rather find ourselves wron(y in our unfavorable ju(-I(YmeDts of them than right. But in this matter the evidence is too clear and conclusive to allow us even to hope that we are wrong. There is not a single Protestant doctrine opposed to Catholicity that even Protestants themselves have not over and over aj-ain completely refuted; there is not a single cliai-ffe brouoht bv Protestants -,igainst,tbt Church that some of them. as well as we, have not fully exploded; and no more conclusive vindication of the claims of Catholicity can be desired than may be-Day, than in fact has been-collected from distino-iiishea' Protestant writers themselves. This is a fact which no Protestant, certainly no Catholic, can deny. How happens it, then, that the Protestant world .;till subsist,;, and 238 that, for the last hundred and fifty years, we have made comp@ atively little pro,,-Tess in remaining Protestants to the Church! We may, it is true, be referred to the obstinacy in error characteristic of all heretics; but, in the present case,-unle,-,s what is meant is obstinacy in error in general, and not in error in par. tieular,-tbi,,- will not suffice as an answer; because, durino, this period, there has been no one particular form of error to which Protestants have uniformly adhered. No class of Protestants adheres to-day to the opinions it oi-ioinally avowed. In this respect, there is a marked difference between the Protestant sects of modern times and the early Oriental sects. The Jacobite holds to-day the same specific heresy which be held a thousand years ago; and the Nestorian of the nineteenth is substantially the Nestorian of the fourth century. But notbino, analogous is true of any of the modern Protestant sects. Protestants boast, indeed, their glorious Reformation, but they no lonolllr hold the views of it-, authors. Lutlier, were he to ascend to the scenes of his earthly laboi -s, would be utterly unable to recognize his teachings in the ' doctrines of the modern Lutherans; the Calvinist remains a Calvinist only in name; the Baptist disclaims his Anabaptist original; the Unitarian points out the errors he detects in his Sociniaii ancestor-,; and the Transcendentalist looks d,-)wn with pity on his Unitarian parents, while he considers it a cruel persecution to be excluded from the Unitarian familv. No sect retain,,, unmodified, unchanged, the precise form of error with which it set out. All the forms Protestants have from time to time assumed have been developed, modified, altered, almost ,is soon a,; assiimed,-always as internal or external controversy made it necessary or expedient. Here is a fact nobody can deny, send it proves conclusively that the Protestant world does not subsist solely by virtue of its obstinate attachment to the views or opinions to which it has once committed it,-elf, or in consequence of its aversion to ebadoe the doctrines it has once pro- fessed.
This fact proves even more than this. Bossuet verv justly concludes from the variations of Protestantism its bjective 239 &Isity,, because the characteristic of truth is invariability; but we may go farther, and from the same variations conclude the ,-?ubjectiz,e falsity of Protestantism, or that Protestants have no real belief in, or attiel)inent to, the particular doctrines they pi-ofe.ss,-not only that Protestants profess a false doctrine, but that they are insecere, and destitute, as a body, of real bODestv in their professions. If tliev believed their doctrines, they coul@ never tolerate the chances they undei-o-O. New sects might, inde@d, arise among them, but no sect would suffer its original doctrines to be in the least altered or modified. The members of every sect, if they believed its creed, would, so long as they adhered to it, be struck with borror at the bare idea of altering or modifying it; for it would seem to them to be altering or iriodifying the revealed Word of God. This is a point of no slight importance in jud(ring the Protestant world, and se2r@ns to us to deserve more attention than the great body of Catholics even are disposed to give it. These variations prove, at least, that Protestantism is something distinct from the formal teachings of Protestants, and something that can and does survive them.
That we are Deitlier rash nor uncharitable in our judgment of Protestants, sevei@e as it unquestionably is, may be collected from facts of daily occurrence. The great body of Protestants. it is well known, labor unceasingly to detach Catholics from the Church, and to this end use all the means the age and country will tolerate. It was to combine their forces against Catholicity, that, a few years since, under the pontificate of Gregory XVI.. the Protestant ministei-,q held their Worlds Convention in Lon. don ; that they formed Protestant alliances in England, Germany, 11rance, Switzerland, and this country, devised a plan in concert with the Italian refiiyees -in these several countries for effect-@ng a civil revolution in every Catholic state, especially in the Pal)al States, and called upon the Protestant people everywhere to contribute funds for carrvidg it out,-a plan, even to minute particular,;, which the well-known ministers, Bacon, Coxe, Beecher, Kirk, ai-@d others, forewarned us of in a meeting of the Protestant Alliance in this city ir 1845, and which we 240 have seen to a great extent realized during the last two years, Triuch to the joy of thousands of nominal Catholics, who little suspected themselves to be the dupes of miserable deinacrogues on the one hand, and of hypocritical Protestant ministers on the oth-ei,. But while Protestants, in season and out of season, by i-neans fair and by means foul, by means open and by means sect-et and tortuous, seek to detach Catholics from fne Church, they appear quite indifferent as to which of the thousand and one Protestant formulas they are led to embrace, or whether, indeed, they are led to embrace any one of them. Excepting, as we always do, here and there an individual, they are satisfied with the simple ftet, that those di-awn off from the Church are no longer Catholics. Whatever we lose, they count their gain, and althotio;h they are well aware that the majority of those thev gain from us turn out rank apostates, infidels, and' blaspliemers, they nevertheless rejoice over them, and claim them as so many accessions to their ranks. If Protestants had any sincerity in their professions, if tliev had anv sense of religion, how could they regard themselves as triumphing in proportion as they succeed in detaching miserable wretches from us, and sinkiD@y them in reli(yion even below the ancient heathen,-especially since none of them dare pretend that we do not embrace all the essentials of the Christian religion, or that salvation is not attain. able in our Church? They profess to be Christians, but they would rather -make us infidels, apostates, atheists, blasphemers, than ,uffer us to remain Catholics. What more conclusive proof can you ask of their insincerity,-of the fact that their professions afford no-clew to the real state of their minds, and ouobt to count @or notbino,?
Doubtless, we are not to be understood to imply that Protestants are always distinctly conscious of their own want of striet honesty and sincerity. No man knoweth whether he deserveth love or hatred. Knowled(re of one's self is hard to acquire; r,elf deception is one of the easiest things in the world, and few there are who are certain that tbov have a good conscience, oy we sure of the motives whicib goverii them.. No d,.)ubl- Pro, 241 estaiits oss over their conduct, and have some method of jiiatifyin(r it in their own eyes; no doubt, they persuade themselves that they are sincere,-at least as sincere as they can afford to be, as honest in their belief as people generally are; but thev know not what manner of spirit they are of, and as that spirit is inherently a lying spirit, as Catholics well know, it must needs lie unto themselves as well as unto others. Probably every beresiarch dupes himself before he dupes others, and holds the post of leader only because a greater dupe than his followers. That kind of honesty and sincerity compatible with a false spirit and gross delusion, we are not disposed to deny to Protestants; but we should remember that no really sincere and truthful mind ever is or ever can be deluded. No man ever is or ever was strictly honest and sincere in the profession of a false doe,tri.ne,-for no false doctrine can ever, in the nature of things, be so evidenced as to exclude doubt; and he who professes to believe what he doubts professes what he knows he does not believe, and therefore professes what he knows is not true. A man may be honestly in doubt as to what is or is not the truth on certain points; but no man can honestly profess f,,tith in a false doctrine,-for in a false doctrine no man can have faith.
A sort of honesty and sineen@ty we certainly concede to the genei@ality of Protestants; but as to the end for which they profess their doctrines, rather than as to the doctrines themselves. The principle common to them, and the only one we can always be sure they will praeti@ly adhere to, is, that the end justifies the means. The end they propose is, neither to save their souls nor to discover and obey the truth, but to destroy or elude Catholicity. The spirit which possesses them maddens them against the Church, and gives them an inward repugnance to everything not opposed to her. To, overthrow her, to blot out her existence, or to prevent her from crushing them with the weight of 'her truth, is to them a praiseworthy end, at least a great and most desirable end; directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, it becomes the ruling passion-after money ttinit -9@ .- -(,f their lives,-a passion in which thev are confirmed ttnd I I 242 strengthened by all the blandishments of the world, and all th4 seductions of the flesh. Any means which tend to gratify this passion, to realize this end, they hold to be lawful, and they can adept them, however base, detestable, or stocking in themselves, with a quiet conse ' ience and admirable self-complacency.
That the ruling motive or dominant instinct of Protestants, in their character of Protestants, is, at least under a negative point of view to destroy or elude Catholicity, is evident from the character of the variations which their Protestantism has undergone, and is daily and hourly undergoing. Examine these variations, and you will find that they each and all tend to remove Protp,,%t, antism farther and farther from the Catholic standard, and to shelter it from the blows of Catholic assailants. Each successive, reformer eliminates from his sect some Catholic doctrine which it may have retained, or modifies some element of which he sees the Catholic controversialist can take advantage. The tendency of the Protestant world, collectively and in each of its divisions and subdivisions, has been steadilv in the direction from the Church against which it protests, and the progress which Protestant.-, so loudly boast, has consisted, and still consists, in getting rid of what they originally retained in common with Catbolies. The Protestant vanguard, which announces that the main body is at hand, has advanced verv far, and retains less of Cbristiaii principle than was retained by the old heathen world in the times of the Apostles. 'ra@e your fully developed Transcendentalist, the last word of Protestantism, and you will find him divested of every Catholic principle, and, under the point of view of religion, reduced, not only to nudity, but to nibility. 'Me poor man retains nothing, not even so much as a shadow. He is a Peter Schlemil, and has sold his shadow to the man in black. What can have reduced him to such straits,-driven him to such extremes? Love of truth, force of conviction? Nothing of the sort. Be not so simple as to pretend it. He assigns, and attempts to assign, no authority, no reason, for his @sm. He even acknowledges that he has no reason to as . 4% and tells you that he only throws out what he thinks, 243 without pretending to prove it. He is a seer, and utters what h4 sees, and you must take him at his word, or not at all. Why, then, does he rush into nihilism? Simply, because he is seer enough to see, that, if he admits that anything exist, he will be driven ultimately to acknowled e the truth of Catholicity. Rather than do that, he will sell his soul, as well as his shadow, to the man in black, and consent to deny his own existence. Almost every day, we meet intelligent Protestant gentlemen who frankly acknowledge that there is no alternative but Catholicity or no-religion, and yet who just as frankly tell us that they will not be Catholics. Not long since, a Protestant minister of respectable standing in this city assured us, in all seriousness, that he would rather be damned than become a Catholic." We of course informed him that be could have his choice, for Almi,o,,hty God forces no one to accept the o,,ift of eternal life. This worthy iuinister is, no doubt, very ready to embrace the truth that does not convict him of error, if such truth there be; but if we may take him at his word, he is prepared to resist, at all hazards, the truth that would indict him. Is it truth, or his own opinion that he loves?
The mistake of our popular controversialists seems to arise from their supposition, that Protestantism can be learned from the symbolical books and theological writings of Protestants. Undoubtedly we can thus learn that Protestantism which is put forth to elude Catholicity, or to lure Catholics from their Church, and therefore a Protestantism hiolily important, for the sake of Catholics, to be studied and refuted; but not thus can we learn the Protestantism which lies in the Protestant mind and heart, and which it is necessary to refute for the sake of Prot- estants themselves. This Protestantism is not learned from symbolical books or theological writings, and but comparatively few Protestants themselves can oive us a clear and distinct statemen@ much less a just account of it. We can seize it only in the historical developments and manifest tendencies of -ths Protestant movement, and explain it only kv means of a than 244 ough knowledge of human nattite on the one hand, and of Catholic faith and theology on the other.
It appears to us, that our controversialists are mistaken, also, in regarding the more reputable sect,,-thatis, the sects which, in their symbols and professions, have departed the least from the Catholic standard-as better exponents of the Protestant mind than the less reputable, and as ose w ose views is the most important to study and refute. Nearly all the con- troversial works we have, originally written in the ED(Plish lan- gua(,Ye, are directed against the Anglican and Protestant Episcopal sects. We are not aware of a single Catholic work, written expressly against the so-called Evano-elical sects, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, or what we may call Pietism. And, with the exception of the profound and sciedfific work of Father Kollmatin, against Unitarians,-too profound and scientifle to be intelligible to those for whom it was written,-we have in English not a single work against Rationalism, which, in reality, has a larger number of adherents, in both England and this country, than either Anglicanism or Evangelicalism. This indicates a serious defect in our controversial literature, and seems to us to be owing to a false estimate of the relative importance of the several Protestant sects. There are, no doubt, many individuals included in the more reputable sects, who, if compelled to choose, would sooner return to the Church than follow the Protestant movement to its natural terminus; but they are only a small minority, and would hardly be missed in the sects to which they respectively belong. All the sects are on the move, tending somewhither. Not one of them is stationary. This they make their boast; and one of the most frequent and most effective charges they bring against the Church is, that she is not progressive, but remains immovable, insisting that we shall believe to-day the very doctrines which she taught and believed in the Dark Ages. The dominant tendency of any given sect is the tendency which the great majority of its members obey. Ascertain then, the dominant tendency of each sect, and you have @,Qned the direction in which the great majority of its 245 members are moving, and will continue to move,- if diverted or arrested by no foreign influence. But what, in fact, is the do@ inanttendeneyofeachandeveryProtestantsw,t? lsthereasingle one whose successive developments, modifications, and changes tend to bring it nearer and nearer to the Catholic standard, and to prepare it for communion with the Church? Nobody can pretend it. Everybody knows that every sect is moving in the opposite direction, and that the dominant tendency of the Protestant world, a few individuals excepted, is towards Rationalism, Transcendentalism, and therefore towards pantheism, atheism, nihilism. This is decisive, and proves that those sects which have departed farthest from Catholicity are the truest repreiitatives of the Protestant spirit, and the best exponents of genuine Protestantism, as the fully developed man is a better exponent of humanitv than the new-born infant. What it is most importadt, then, to study and refute, must be the principles of these more advanced sects, Dot those of the sects who remain behind, or are still rocking in their cradle, and therefore Transcendentalism, rather than Anglicanism.
Undoubtedly we see, from time to time, a conservative, perhaps a retrogade, movement in the bosom of the several sects. But this movement is the result, in most cases, of alarm for the credit or prosperity of the sect, rather than of any deep or sincere attachment to the principles or doctrines the sect threatenstG leave behind. Besides, the movement is ever but a mere eddy in the stream, or a slight apple on its surface. It reaches never to the bottom of the sect, and arrests or diverts never its main current. This is evident from the late Oxford movement, one of the most important movements of the kind which has recently been witnessed. There was a time when timid Protestants feared, and many good Catholics hoped, that it would restore England to Catholic faitb and unity; but no sooner did it become manifest to all the world that its tendency was to communion with Rome, than it was arrested. A few individuals became reconciled to the Church, but the majority of those at first favorably disposed towards it avowedly or tacitly abandoned 246 it, lapsed into the ordinary channel of their sect, and suffered themselves to be borne onward with it towards its natural term, -no-relio,ion, or nihilism. So it is in every sect in which a similar movement takes place. As soon as it is clear that its tendency is anti-Protestant, that isi towards Rome, it is arrested, and only here and there Ein individual dares henceforth avow his adherence to it.
It may be thought by some, that the more reputable sects are the real bulwarks of Protestantism, and that, if we refute them, the less reputable sects will fall of themselves. Doubtless this is one reason why otir English and American Catholic controversialists direct their attacks so exclusively against Anglicanism and Protestant Episcopalianism. But we are disposed to believe that - the real supporters of Protestantism, if not in themselves, at least in their views and influence, are the sects which are farthest removed from Catholicity. If there was nothing below Anglicanism to which Anolicans could descend, we should have short work with it, and the Anglican and Episcopal sects would soon disappear. The more reputable sects, compaiing themselves with the iiiimen-e Protestant world below them, look upon themselves as substantially orthodox and ate ihore disposed to dwell on what they retain that others have given up, than on what they themselves lack which we have. They form, too, a sort of aristocracy, a haute noblesse, in the sectarian world, and are pleased with their rank, and unwilling to forego the importance it gives them in their own eyes. Moreover, the sects below them, all Protestant, and of their own race, smooth the descent for them in proportion as they are driven from their more elevated position, and enable them to descend' by an easy graclatioii, by almost imperceptible steps, to the lowest depths of error. If the Itigh-churchman is defeated, he can descend to Low-churchism ; if the Low-churchman is defeated, be can descend to Evqngelicalism; if the Evangelical is defeated, he can descend either, on the one hand, to Rationalism, or, on the other, to Transcendentalism,@for, in point of fact, Evangelicalism is tiothing but a loose combination of Rationalism and Transmnd- 247 entalism. It is far easier for a Hi(,Yh-cliurchman to become a Low-ehurchman than it is for him to become a Catholic, and always is the next step in the descending scale far easier to take than the next step in the ascending scale.
Facilis descensus Averno:
Noctes atque dies patet atri janua Ditis;
Sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras,
Hoc opus, hic labor est.As long as there is a lower step that can be taken without abaridonidg the essential element of Protestantism, the defeat Of the more reputable sect.-,, on the ground .hey profess to occupy, will do little for their conversion ; for they will never acknowledge, even to themselves, that they are defeated, so long as there is any conceivable Protestant ground from which they are not actually driven. It is owin(y to the fact that Protestants now claim as Protestant all the territory between the ground occupied by Dr. Pusey and that occupied by M. Proudbon, and thus have a larger field for advance or retreat, that we find their conversion in our times so much more difficult than it was formerly. St. Francis of Sales, Bishop of Geneva, himself alone regained sevent,y-two thousand Protestants to the Church; we are aware of no bishop in the present age, however zealous, learned, able, or sairitiy, who has the consolation of recoverino, anything approaching a like number. We cannot, therefore, but regard the views and tendencies of the more advanced sects as those which it is now altogether the most important to study and refute
Not only does Protestantism, as our divines have from the first maintained, logically lead to the denial of all religion, to atheism, and therefore to nihilism,-for to deny that God exists is to deny that anything is,-but it is now clear to oil who have examined the subject, that the great body of Protestants are really prepared, a-, occasion may require, to follow it thus far. The majority of the Protestint world are really, if not avowedly, Tran-cendentalis@- to-day, as every one know,, who is acquaints 248 with recent Protestant literature; and Strauss, Feuerl)acli, Bauer, Parker, Emerson, Michelet,, Quinet, and Proudhon have more sympathizers than -Hengstenberg, Pusey, Seabury, NeviD, Alexander, Beecher, and Kirk. Proudbon is nothing but a consistent Red Republican; and where is the Protestant, in case he is not restrained by his temporal interest, who does not sympathize withRedRepublicanism? HavenotProtestantsverygeiierally, in England and this country, sympathized with Mazzini and his Roman Republic? Nav, was it not in concert with, and by aid even of, the more reputable Protestant seets, that be expelled the Sovereign Pontiff, and established his Reign of Terror? Is not Protestant sympathy very generally enlisted in favor of the infidel and socialistic revolutions in Europe, all of which have been stirred up and helped on by Protestants, under the lead of their ministers, in the name of liberty, but really for the pur. pose of overthrowing and annihilating the Church ? Evident is it, then, that they will go, as a body, to all lengths which they find necessary to accomplish their purpose of hostility to Catbolicity; and as they never can even logically overthrow the Church, so long as the existence of anything is admitted, they must deny everything, and rush into nihilism.
It is necessary, then, if we wish to arrest the Protestant movement, and do what in us lies to save the souls of Protestants, that we reason with them, not as if it were a sufficient refutation of them to prove that they are tending to atheism, but as men who believe nothing, and build up our argument against them from the very foundation. Prove to them that their doctrines are anti-Christian, and they will only beg you to inform them wherefore that is a reason for Dot believing them ; prove Christiaiiity to be true, and they will merely beg you to prove your proofs, and thus demand of you an infinite series of proofs. They are, under the point of view of religion and philosophy, wholly rotten, and from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head there is no soundness in them. Nothing will answer for them that does 7aot descend as low as the last denial that it is possible for the human mind to conceive, and drive them from 249 positioil to position, till there is no position remdinino, out '(ie of t.'.qpl CLui,(,h which tliev can even affect to take.
Protestantism as we now find it, and even as it was, virtually, in the sixteei)th century, is not merely the denial of certain Catholic floginag, is not merely the denial of the, Christian revelation itself, but re,,illv the denial of all religion and morality, natural and revealed. It denies reason itself, as far as it is in the power of man to deny it, and is no less unsound as philosophy than it is as fiith. It extinguishes the light of nature no less than the li(rht of revelation, -ind is as false in relation to the iiatural order as to the supernatural. Even when Pro@tants make a profession' of believing in revelation, they discredit reason. In regard to reason, they are, even when professing to believe, very generally Pyrrbonist-,. The Evangelical sects, for instance, do not i-nerc@ly deny the sufficiency of reason as our only guide, but they (lenv its trustworthiness altogether, and assert that we must tike fr our guide the Scriptures, not as interl)reted by an authority accredited to reason, nor as interpreted by i-e@tsoti itself, but a,,; interpreted by the private illuminations of the spirit. They thus supersede, as it were, annihilate, reason, and reduce themselves to the condition of irrational beings, virtually declare man incapable of receiving a supernatural revelation, and then call upon him to believe the Bible, and to walk by the supernatural light of faith. As long as their enthusiasm lasts, as long a-, they can keep up a- sort of unnatural excitement they may half persuade themselves that they are supernaturally illuminated ; but as soon @ their fever abates, and they sink to their ordinary level, they experience the most painful rnisoivings, Ihe supposed supernatural light fades away, and, having no reason on which to fall back, they can believe nothing, qnd either openly avow themselves infidels, or, merely keep up a s w of piety, seek relief by devoting all their energies to worldly dis@nctions or pleasures. They begin by proposing revelation, not as the complement, but as the substitute, of reason; and when revelation fails, as fail it must f not supposed by motives of 250 credibility addressed to reason, and satisfactory to it, nothing re, mains for them but universal skepticism.
The formalistic sects, as the ADglican and Episcopalian, reach the same result tliouffh by a different process. Building on sham, taking the shadow for the substance, and denying both the substance and the light the shadow necessarily implies,-or, in other words, refusing to draw from their premises their logical consequences, afraid to make a complete proposition, to say twt, and two make four, and stopping short with saying two and two, lest they lose the via media, and roll over to Rome, or fall off into Dissent,-they destroy reason by mutilating and enslaving it, and find themselves without anything by or to which a supernatural revelation can be accredited. The Rationalistic sects, seeing the errors of Evangelicals and formalists, think to save reason by resolving the supernatural into the natural ; but in doing this they lose revelation, and therefore reason,-because no man can deny revelation without denying reason, and because reason without revelation is insufficient for herself, inadequate to the solution of the great problems of life which she herself raises. Be,rinniDg by asking of reason more than she can give, they end by discarding her and fallino, into universal skepticism, the ultimate term of all Protestantism.
Protestants, it is well known, are able to keep up the selfdelusion that they are believers only by obstinately refusing to push their principles to their legitimate consequences, and by shiittino, their eyes to the objections which may be suggested or urged against them. The condition of a Protestant wisbing to retain his Protestantism, and yet keep up the appearance of being a believer, is most pitiable. The poor man has no mental freedom, no intellectual courage, but is a cowardly slave, with all the weakness and ineatjness characteristic of slaves in general. He never dares trust himself to his principles, and follow them out to their remotest logical consequences, and is doomed, turn which way he will, to be inconsequent, and to submit to a most tyrannical and capricious master; for otherwise he would find himself, oi the one hand, approaching too near Catholicity to 251 Protestant, or, on the Other, too near to ll'h"'sm to poor man He even pretend to be a believer. Alas for the bugs his chains, and, by the strangest infatuation imaginable fancies his slavery is freedom. All who have studied the subject know well that Protestants are Protestants, not by virtue of reason, but in spite of reasonf-not because they reason, but solely because they do not, will not, and dare not reason. The rejection of reason is their fundamental vice. Reason is our natural light, and, thouob of no value out of its Sphere, in its sphere is inerrable. It does not suffice of itself for all the wants of the human soul, but its annihilation reduces us below the condition of men, and renders us incapable of receiving even a supernatural revelation. Revelation does not abrogate or supersede reason; it restores it and supplies its deficiencies. Grace su@ poses nature. Christianity is a system of pure grace,-is, in fact, a supernatural creation, but a supernatural creation for the natural, designed to repair the damage nature has incurred by guilt, and to enable man to attain the end to which his Creator originally appointed him. Man is not for the Sacraments, but the Sacraments are for man. The first office of grace is to restore nature, or to heal its wounds; having restored it to health, it elevates it, indeed, but always retains it, and uses it. Here is the grand fact that Protestant theologians always overlook. They, in reality, always present nature and grace as two antagonistic powers, and suppose the presence of the one must be the physical destruction of the other. Luther and Calvin, weary of the good works, and shrinking from the efforts to acquire the personal virtues enjoined by Catholicity, began their so-called reform by asserting the total depravity of human nature, and maintaining that original sin involved the loss of reason and freewill, reducing man physically to the condition of iffational animals, and superadcling the penalty of guilt. Here, in the very outset, they denied natural reason, all natural religion, and all natural morality, and consequently asserted for man in the natural order, left to his natural powers and faculties, universal skeptieism and moral indifference; for without reason there can be 252 no belief, and without free-will no moral obligation, no moral dif feredee of actions.
The Arminians, indeed, saw this, and sought to remedy it by reasserting the natural law ; but as they still held to total depravity, the reassertion amounted to nothing ; or, if they sometimes abandoned total depravity, they rushed to the opposite extreme, and reasserted Pelagianism or semi-Pelagianism, and restricted the office of grace to enabling us to do more easily what, nevertheless, we are able to do without it. If they suc-eeded in escaping the peculiar error of Luther and Calvin, they fell into Rationalism. As Luther and Calvin annihilated reason and free-will, the whole spiritual nature of man, and made man purely passive in the work of regeneration and Christian perfection, the Ari-ninians, become Rationalists, disregarding the necessity of grace, made the natural law sufficiei3t, and asserted only a natural morality. But experience proving the inadequacy of the natural law, when taken without its revealed complement and sanction,-of natural morality, when not elevated by supernatural Christian virtue,-they, like the others, lapsed, of necessity, into the same skepticism.
The error of each class is avoidable only by understanding that grace always supposes nature, and that grace without nature would be a,,; a telescope to a man without eyes. Revelation supposes reason, and we as effectually deny Christianity when we deny reason as when we deny revelation; both must be asserted with equal firmness and emphasis, each in its own sphere, in relation to its appropriate office, or nothing is asserted. To deny reason is, a fortiori, to deny revelation, and to deny revelation is virtually to denv reason - because the evidences of the fact of revelation are amply sufficient to satisfy reason, and because reason, without revelation, being undeniably insufficient to solve the problems which torture the mind without faith, and to satisfy the craving Of our nature for something above itself, cannot maintain itself practically in credit, and necessarily loses its authority. Philosophy, undoubtedly, rests for its basis on natural reason, otherwise we should be unable to distinguish is 253 from Catholic theology, or to draw any intelligible distinction between the natural and supernatural ; but without the light of revelation, we shall never be able, in our fallen condition, to construct a sound and adequate philosophy. So, on the other hand, without a sound and adequate philosophy, we can never possess a true and adequate theology ; for @ revelation is necessary as an instrument in the construction of philosophy, so is philosophy necessary as an instrument in the construction of theoloo,y,-that is, theology as a science, and as distinguishable from faith. Hence, in all courses of Catholic instruction, the student makes his philosophy before he proceeds to his theology.
It is clear enough, from what we have said, that the most pressing want of Protestants, under the intellectual point of view, is a sound philosophy, which, so to speak, shall rehabilitate reason, and restore them to natural religion and morality. They have lost reason, and have fallen below the religion or morality which lies in the natural order, and which all revealed religion and morality presuppose. The philosophy needed is nowbere to be found in the Protestant world, -ind cannot possibly be created by Protestants, for the reason that the revelation which must serve as its instrument they have not, or at best only some detached fragments of it. The only respectable school of philosopby to be found amongst Protestants is the Scottish School of Reid and Stewart ; but this school doomatizes rather than pbilosopbizes. It very justly assumes that all philosophy must proceed from certain indemonstrable principles, and it does not err essentially in its inventory of these principles ; but it fails to establish them, or to show us that they have scientific validity. It calls them the constituent principles of human belief, and lays, very truly, that they must be admitted, or all science, all philosophy, is out of the question. But this is no more than Hume, whom it aims to refute, himself said. Is science or philosopby possble ? is the precise question to be answered. '-Vitbout the conditions you assert, we grant it is not possible but what then? Therefore your alleo-ed principles are sound I Why not : Therefore all science, -ill philosophy, is impossible I 254 No doubt, the Scottish School has protested vehemently against the skepticism of HuiDe, but its refutation of that skepticism is a niere pai-alogism, a simple be(,rgino- of the question, and therefore, scientifically considered, worthless.
But, after all we cannot place our chief reliance on philosophy as an instrument in the conversion of Protestants. Philosopby is too indirect and too slow in its operations to meet their wants. They are too far gone, too restless, too impatient, too averse to calm reflection and continuous thou(fht, to listen to us while we set the true philosophy before them, or to subiiiit to the labor absolutely requi,.;ite to comprehend and appreciate profound philosophical science. An age of balloons, steam- cars, and lightning telegi-aphs is not exactly the age for philos- ophers. Moreover, Protestant perversity would find in the necessity of the long and patient thought, and close and subtile reasoning, demanded by philosophy, an objection to our religion it-,elf. Your relioion, they would say, if true, is intended foi all mankind, and therefore should be within the reach of every capacity. The thought and reasoning necessary to create or understand the philosophy you insist upon, transcend the eapacity of all but the gifted few, and therefore, if necessary to establish your religion, prove that your religion is not true. We might, indeed, reply, that the thougl)t and reasoning objected to are necessary to refute the errors of Protestants, not simply to establish our religion; but that would amount to nothing in practice. The nature of the Protestant is to devise the most subtile error.; in his power, and to find an objection to our religion in the very labor he makes necessary for their refutation. When be -objects, be may be as subtile ind as abstruse as be I)Iea,ses ; but when we reply, lie insists that we shall be popular, and never go beyond the depth of the most ordinary capacity,that we shall answer the objection not only to the mind that raises it, but to the minds of all men. Only the candid among Protestants would acknowledge the justness of our reply, and these would fail to comprehend it; for if you find a candid Pro@tan@ you may safely conclude that he lacks intelligenen 255 as when you find an intelligent Protestant you may be sure that he lacks candor. There must, then, be some briefer and more expeditious wav of dealing ivith Protestants than that of philosophy, if we wis@ to atTt3ct thei-n favorably.
We have defined Protestantism to be hostility to the Church, and virtually nihilism, because Protestants in general, sooner than return to the Church will push their hostility to its last consequence, which is the denial of God, therefore of all existence and existences. - But this is not all that we have to say of the matter. No man loves error for its own sake, or wills what does not appear to him to be good. The natural heart of every man recoils instinctively from atheism ; and it is seldom, if ever, that one without a fearful and even a protracted struggle abandons all faitli and piety, resigns all hope of an hereafter, and conseijts to place himself in the category of the beasts that perish. Hatred, no doubt, will carry a man to great lengths; but even hatred must have its cause, real or imaginary. Hatred is love reversed, and intense hatred of one thing is the reverse action of intense love of sonietbin(r else. Protestants bate the Church. Wherefore? Because tbev love truth? Nonsense. Because they believe her false, and destructive to the souls of men ? Nonsense again. We hope there is no Catholic so stupid as to believe it. Their hatred of the Church has nothing to do with concern for truth or for salvation. A large portion of them believe in no truth, in no salvation ; a larger portion still are of opinion that all men will be saved, and that truth is whatever seems to a man to be true; and the remainder bold that the Church is substantially orthodox, and that salvation is attainable in her communion, as well as in their own. Whatever, then, the cause of their hatred of the Church, it is a cause unconnected with considerations of another world, or with truth as such.
We need not look far for this something which Protestants love and the Church condemns, and for condemning which they are full of wrath against her. It is nothing very recondite, or very difficult to seize. We make quite too much of Protestant- 256 i,;in, which is, in realitv, a very vulgar thino, and lies altogether on the surface of life. Protestantism is nothing more or less than that spirit of lawlessness which leads every one to wish to have his own wa)7,-very common in women and children, tind perhaps not less common in men, only they have, generally, a better faculty of concealing it. Objectively defined, it is expres,@ed in the common saying, " Forbidden fruit is sweetest;" and subjectively, it is a craving for what is prohibited, because probibited. It imagines that the sovereign good is in what the law forbids, and opposes the Church because she upholds the law, -bates the law because the law restrains it, duty because duty obliges it; and since, as long as it admits the existence of God, it must admit duty, it denies God; and since, as long as it adniits the existence of anything, it must admit the existence of God, it denies everything, and lapses into Dibilism. Here is the whole mystery of the matter,-Protestantism in a nutshell.
The source of this impatience of restraint, and this desire to have one's own way, is the pride natural to the humaii heart, the root of every vice and of every sin, " Your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as god-,., knowing good and evil," said the serpent to Eve; and she reached forth her hand, plucked the foi@bidden fruit, ate, and siii and death were in the world. Pride is, on the one hand, a denial of our dependence, and, on the other, the assertion of our own sufficiency. Here you may @ the ori(rin and the essential characteristic of Protestantism, which is as old as the first motion of pride or of resistance to the will of God. Protestantism, after all, is more ancient than we commonly concede. Di,. Johnson, in his Dictionary, would have been as correct if he had said the Devil was the first Protestant, as he was in saying that he was " the first Wbig," It i)ffends pride to be compelled to acknowledge our own insufficiciicy, to admit that we cannot be trusted to follow our own inclinations, that we must be subjected to metes and bounds, and placed under tutors and ma-ters, who say, Do this, Do that; and we are galled, and we resolve we will not endure it; we will break the withes that bind us; we will stand up on our owat 257 we feet, and assert our freedom in face of heaven, earth and hell. flence we see Protestants, in every age, mounting the ttliest pair of stilts they can find or construct, and with more or less veheinence, ivith more or less eclat, according to the circumstances of time and place, niaaniloquently isserting the " inborn" rights or,' man, proudly swearing to be free, to sttiid up in their native dignity, in the full and resplendent i-n@iesty of their own manhood, and making such appeals and foriiiing such alliances as they fancy will best secure their independence, relieve them from all restraint,;, and give them the opportunity to live as they list.
Such is the general and essential characteristic of Protestantism; its particular character or form is determined by, and varies with, the circumstances of time and place. In itself, as Balmes well shows, it is a phenomenon peculiar to no period of history, but whatever it has that is peculiar it borrows from the character of the epoch in which it appears. It is always essentially the spirit that works in the children of disobedience, but the form under which the disobedience manifests itself depends on exterior -tnd accidental causes. What it resists is what it finds offensive to human pride, to pure, unmitigated egotism, and what it asserts is always asserted as the means of securing free scope to its independent action. In the sixteenth century, pride found itself galled by submission to the Church, for the Church could not tolerate its wild speculations and its tbeological errors. It then den-@ed the authority of the Church; and in order to make a show of justifying its denial, it asserted the supremacy of the Scriptures, interpreted by private reason, or by the private Spirit. Soon it found that the assertion of the suprelnacy of the Scriptures, so interpreted, limited its sovereignty, and that it was as galling to its sense of independence to submit to a dead book as to a living Church, and then it denied the Scriptures, and, to justi@- its denial, asserted the supremacy of reason. But reason, again, galled it, reminded it of its dependence, and would not suffer it to live as it listed. Then it cried out, Down with reason, and up with sentiment!a Trarscendental element paramount tD reasoii,-and thus 258 reached the juinpin(r-off place. In order to resist effectually the Pope, it at one time, as in Engltnd, proclaims the divine right of kings; and then, in order to get rid of the divine right of kin_zs, it proclaims the divine right of the people, or, to speak more accurately, of the mob ; and finally, in order to get rid of the authority of the mob, it proclaims the divine right of each and every individual, and declares that each and every individual is God, the only God,-thus resolving God into men, and all men into one man, which implies the right of every man to take the entire universe to himself. an4l possess it as his own property. You laugh at its absurdity? Upon our conscience, we invent nothing, we exago@erate nothing, and -ay nothing more than is asserted, in sober earnest, by men whom the Protestant world delio,lits to boner.
Turn Protestantism over as you will, analyze it to your heart's content, you can make nothing more or less of it than mere vul(rar pride, and the various efforts pride makes from time to time and place to place to secure its own gratification, to realize the assertion of the serpent, " Ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil,"-that is, ye shall know good and evil of yourselves, as God knows them of himself, and shall be independent, and -act a,,; seemeth to you good, even as God is independent and doth according to his will, not as subject to a power above himself, and in obedience to another will than his own. Just see the proof of this, in the svmpatbv now uiiiversall given to y every revolt affainst established authority. All your modern literature is Satanic, and approves, and teaches us to approve, every rebel, whether against parental, popular, royal, or Divine authority. The Protestant readers of Paradise Lost sympathize with Lucifer, in his war against the Almighty, and if they bad been in heaven, as one of our friends suggests, would have sided with him. Our friend, J. D. Nourse, *258 defending himself agains@, our strictures on his book, boldly asserts that God is a despot, -,nd his government a despotism,-nay, that all authority is despotic. 259
Finding the essence of Protestantism to be mere vul@&r pride, that it is a moral disease rather than an intellectual aberration, it is evident that we are to treat it as a vice rather than as an error, and Protestants as sinners rather than as simply unbeliever-, or misbelievers. This may not be very flattering to their pride; nevertheless, it is the only way they deserve to be treated, and the only way in which they can be treated for their good. We honor them quite too much when we treat them as men whose heads are wron(v but whose hearts are sound. The wrongness of the head is the consequence of the rottenness of the heart. The remedy must be applied to the seat of the disease, or it will be wholly ineffectual; and as the disease is in the will rather than in the intellect, we must, as we do with sinners in general, avail ourselves of motives that tend to persuade the will, rather than of those which tend primarily to convince the understanding. Get the heart right, and the intellect will soon rectify itself.
Now it is certain, that, so far as the great body of Protestants are concerned, it is of no use to appeal to any love of truth or regard for salvation they may be supposed to have. They are very generally prepared, with Macbeth, "to jump the world to come," and think only how they shall manage matters for this world. They are worldly, and their wisdom is earthly, sensual, devilish ; even their virtues, their honesty, their uprightness of conduct, have reference, not to God, but to their justification, either in the eyes of the world, or in the eyes of their own pride. They are too proud or too vain to do this or that act which is contrary to good manners. We must therefore approach them as men who,are wedded to this world, who are Protestants for the sake of living for this world alone, and refuse to be Catbolics because Catholicity enjoins humility, detachment from the world, and a life of self-denial and mortification, lived for God alone. As long as it is conceded, or as long as they believe it true, that their Protestantism is more favorable to man, regarded Bolely as an inhabitant of this world, than Catholicity, we cannot 260 get them to listen to what we have to say for our religios. they hear, it will be as if they heard not.
But it is a fact, as clearly demonstrable, in its way, as any mathematical problem, that Catholicity enjoins the only normal life for man, even in this world, letting alone what it secures ua in another. Human pride just now takes the form of Socialisr.., and Socialism is th-e Protestantism of our times. It is human pride under this form that we must address, and show to the Socialists, not-as some silly and misguided creatures calling themselves Catholits, and sometimes occupying editorial chairs, are accustomed to do-that Catholicity favors them by @pting their Socialism, but that it favors the object they prof@§ to have at heart,@t@at it is the true and onlv Lenuine Socialism, the basis of all veritable society, and the only @nown instrument of well-being, either for the individual or for the race. We must show, that, under the sctial point of view, un r e various relations of civilization, Protestantism is an egregious blunder, and precipitates its adherents into the precise evils they really wish to avoid. That it does so is evident enough to all who have eyes to see, and is proved by the very complaints Protestants rdake of their own movements. Their own complaints of themselves slionv, to use a vulgar proverb, that they always "jump from the frViDg-pan into the fire," in attempting to better their condition. Theycoiild not endure the authority of the Church they resisted it, and fell under the tyranny of the sect, even in their own view of the case, a thousand times less tolerable. They rebelled, in the Dame of liberty, against the Pope, and f(,Il under the iron rule of the civil despot; in England, they could -not endure the LorXs bishops, and they fell unde r the Lord's presbyters, and froi-n Lord's presbyters under the Lord's brethren, and froi-n Lord's brethren under the capricious tyranny of their own fancies and passions. In political and social reforms it lii:, fared Do better with them. In FraDCC, the (@'onstituante were more oppressive tbqn the old monarchy, the Gironde than thp Constituan,te, the Mountaii. than the Gironde ; and the present Prench government, in order to save society from complete d@ 261 traction, is obli(red to adopt measures more stringent than ever Charles th@- Tenth or Louis Philippe dared venture upon. The overthrow of one tyranny leads to another Of DeCessity more heartless and oppressive, because weaker and possessing a less firm hold on the affections of the people. A stron(r government can afford to be lenient. A weak government must be stringent Y6t the wise men of the age rush on in their wild-goose chase after worldly felicity, while it flies ever the faster before them. Like tt.,2 gambler, who has played away his patrimony, his wife's jewels, and pawned his hat and coat, but keeps playing on, they insist on another throw,-though losing all, fancy they are just acroing to recover all, and make a fortune equal to their boundless wishes. If they could but see themselves as the unexcited bystanders see them, they would throw away the dice, and rush with self-loathing from the hell in which they find only their own ruin.
The principle on which Protestants seek even worldly felicity i,, false, and we can say nothing better of them, than that they prove themselves what the sacred Scriptures would term fools in following it. When was it ever known that pride, following itself, did not meet mortification, or that any worldly distinction, or good, sought for its own sake, did not either baffle pursuit, or prove a canker to the heart? Did you ever see a man runninafter fame that ever overtook it, or a man always nursing his health that was ever other than sickly? Have you, uQ eyes, no ears, no understanding'! Fame comes, if at all, iRiAsougbt, greatness follows in the train of humility, and bappipess, coy to the importunate wooer throws herself into the arnas of him who treats her with indifference. All experience proves the truth of the principle, " Seek first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things sliill be superadded unto you." Take it as inspiration, a,, the word of God, or as a maxim of human prudence, it is equally true, and be who runs against it only proves his own folly. 11 Live while you live," says the Protestant Epicurean. Be it so ; live while you live, but live you canno@ unless you live to God, according to the principles of tht 262 Catholic religion. Live now you do not, and you know vou do not; you are only just agoing, and not a few of you fear that vou are never even agoino, to live, as all your poetry, with its deep pathos and melodious wail, too amply proves.
Here comes in to our aid the excellent work before us. It exactly meets the present state of the Protestant we ' rld, and makes the only kind of appeal to Nvhicb, in their present mood, they will listen. Its author makes no apology for Catholicity, he offers no direct argument for its truth; he simply comes forward and compares the respective influences of Protestantism and Catholicity on European civilization, and shows, that, while Catholicity tends-unC@iD(fly to advance civilization- Protestantisin as unceasingly tends to savactism, and that it is to its hostile influences we owe the slow progress of European civilization during the last three centuries. He shows that Protestantism is hostile to liberty, to philosophy, to the higher mental culture, to art, to equality, to political and social well-being. He shows i4 we say; not merely asserts, but proves it, by unanswerable arguments and UDdeDiable facts. If any one doubts our judgment, we. ref(@r him to the work itself, and beg him to gainsay its facts, or answer its reasoning, if he can. The Protestant who reads it will hardly boast of his Protestantism again.
*258 See below. Authority and Liberty.
Adapted from
Essays and Reviews p. 234
Brownson's Quarterly Review (October, 1849)
Works, Vol. VI, p. 135
Revised January 8, 2005.