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<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Protestantism</title><script src="https://dtyry4ejybx0.cloudfront.net/js/cmp/cleanmediacmp.js?ver=0104" async="true"></script><script defer data-domain="newadvent.org" src="https://plausible.io/js/script.js"></script><link rel="canonical" href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12495a.htm"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <meta name="description" content="Discussion of Protestant beliefs and doctrines"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="http://feeds.newadvent.org/bestoftheweb?format=xml"><link rel="icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><link rel="shortcut icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><meta name="robots" content="noodp"><link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="../utility/screen6.css" media="screen"></head> <body class="cathen" id="12495a.htm">  <br/> <div id="capitalcity"><table summary="Logo" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width="100%"><tr valign="bottom"><td align="left"><a href="../"><img height=36 width=153 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></td><td align="right"> <form id="searchbox_000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0" action="../utility/search.htm">  <input type="hidden" name="safe" value="active"> <input type="hidden" name="cx" value="000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0"/> <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="FORID:9"/>  <label for="searchQuery" id="searchQueryLabel">Search:</label> <input id="searchQuery" name="q" type="text" size="25" aria-labelledby="searchQueryLabel"/>  <label for="submitButton" id="submitButtonLabel" class="visually-hidden">Submit Search</label> <input id="submitButton" type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" aria-labelledby="submitButtonLabel"/> </form> <table summary="Spacer" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td height="2"></td></tr></table> <table summary="Tabs" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff"></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../"> Home </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_white_on_color" href="../cathen/index.html"> Encyclopedia </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../summa/index.html"> Summa </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../fathers/index.html"> Fathers </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../bible/gen001.htm"> Bible </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../library/index.html"> Library </a></td> </tr></table> </td> </tr></table><table summary="Alphabetical index" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"> <a href="../cathen/a.htm"> A </a><a href="../cathen/b.htm"> B </a><a href="../cathen/c.htm"> C </a><a href="../cathen/d.htm"> D </a><a href="../cathen/e.htm"> E </a><a href="../cathen/f.htm"> F </a><a href="../cathen/g.htm"> G </a><a href="../cathen/h.htm"> H </a><a href="../cathen/i.htm"> I </a><a href="../cathen/j.htm"> J </a><a href="../cathen/k.htm"> K </a><a href="../cathen/l.htm"> L </a><a href="../cathen/m.htm"> M </a><a href="../cathen/n.htm"> N </a><a href="../cathen/o.htm"> O </a><a href="../cathen/p.htm"> P </a><a href="../cathen/q.htm"> Q </a><a href="../cathen/r.htm"> R </a><a href="../cathen/s.htm"> S </a><a href="../cathen/t.htm"> T </a><a href="../cathen/u.htm"> U </a><a href="../cathen/v.htm"> V </a><a href="../cathen/w.htm"> W </a><a href="../cathen/x.htm"> X </a><a href="../cathen/y.htm"> Y </a><a href="../cathen/z.htm"> Z </a> </td></tr></table></div> <div id="mobilecity" style="text-align: center; "><a href="../"><img height=24 width=102 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></div>  <div id="mi5"><span class="breadcrumbs"><a href="../">Home</a> > <a href="../cathen">Catholic Encyclopedia</a> > <a href="../cathen/p.htm">P</a> > Protestantism</span></div> <div id="springfield2"> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-top' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <h1>Protestantism</h1> <p><em><a href="https://gumroad.com/l/na2"><strong>Please help support the mission of New Advent</strong> and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more  all for only $19.99...</a></em></p> <p>The subject will be treated under the following heads, viz.:</p> <div class="bulletlist"><ul><li>I. Origin of the Name.</li><li>II. Characteristic Protestant Principles.</li><li>III. Discussion of the Three Fundamental Principles of Protestantism:</li> <ul><li>A. <em>The Supremacy of the Bible;</em></li><li>B. <em>Justification by Faith Alone;</em></li><li>C. <em>The Universal Priesthood of Believers.</em></li> </ul> <li>IV. Private Judgment in Practice.</li><li>V. "Justification by Faith Alone" in Practice.</li><li>VI. Advent of a New Order: Cæsaropapism.</li><li>VII. Rapidity of Protestant Progress Explained.</li><li>VIII. Present-day Protestantism.</li><li>IX. Popular Protestantism.</li><li>X. Protestantism and Progress:</li> <ul><li>A. <em>Prejudices;</em></li><li>B. <em>Progress in Church and Churches;</em></li><li>C. <em>Progress in Civil Society;</em></li><li>D. <em>Progress in Religious Toleration;</em></li><li>E. <em>The Test of Vitality.</em></li> </ul> <li>XI. Conclusion. </li></ul></div> <h2 id="section1">Origin of the name</h2> <p>The Diet of the Holy Roman Empire, assembled at <a href="../cathen/14214e.htm">Speyer</a> in April, 1529, resolved that, according to a <a href="../cathen/04670a.htm">decree</a> <a href="../cathen/12454b.htm">promulgated</a> at the Diet of Worms (1521), communities in which the new religion was so far established that it could not without great trouble be altered should be free to maintain it, but until the meeting of the council they should introduce no further innovations in religion, and should not forbid the <a href="../cathen/10006a.htm">Mass</a>, or hinder <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholics</a> from assisting thereat.</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>Against this <a href="../cathen/04670a.htm">decree</a>, and especially against the last article, the adherents of the new Evangel — the Elector Frederick of Saxony, the Landgrave of <a href="../cathen/07298c.htm">Hesse</a>, the <a href="../cathen/01262a.htm">Margrave Albert of Brandenburg</a>, the Dukes of Lüneburg, the Prince of <a href="../cathen/01513e.htm">Anhalt</a>, together with the deputies of fourteen of the free and imperial cities — entered a solemn protest as <a href="../cathen/08010c.htm">unjust</a> and impious. The meaning of the protest was that the dissentients did not intend to <a href="../cathen/14763a.htm">tolerate</a> <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholicism</a> within their borders. On that account they were called <em>Protestants</em>.</p> <p>In course of time the original connotation of "no toleration for <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholics</a>" was lost sight of, and the term is now applied to, and accepted by, members of those <a href="../cathen/09022a.htm">Western Churches</a> and <a href="../cathen/13674a.htm">sects</a> which, in the sixteenth century, were set up by the <a href="../cathen/12700b.htm">Reformers</a> in direct opposition to the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>. The same man may call himself Protestant or Reformed: the term <em>Protestant</em> lays more stress on antagonism to <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Rome</a>; the term <em>Reformed</em> emphasizes adherence to any of the <a href="../cathen/12700b.htm">Reformers</a>. Where <a href="../cathen/07759a.htm">religious indifference</a> is prevalent, many will say they are Protestants, merely to signify that they are not <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholics</a>. In some such vague, negative sense, the word stands in the new formula of the <a href="../cathen/13213a.htm">Declaration of Faith</a> to be made by the King of <a href="../cathen/05445a.htm">England</a> at his <a href="../cathen/04380a.htm">coronation</a>; viz.: "I declare that I am a faithful Protestant". During the debates in Parliament it was observed that the proposed formula effectively debarred <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholics</a> from the throne, whilst it committed the king to no particular <a href="../cathen/04478a.htm">creed</a>, as no man knows what the <a href="../cathen/04478a.htm">creed</a> of a faithful Protestant is or should be.</p> <h2 id="section2">Characteristic Protestant principles</h2> <p>However vague and indefinite the <a href="../cathen/04478a.htm">creed</a> of individual Protestants may be, it always rests on a few standard rules, or principles, bearing on the Sources of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>, the means of <a href="../cathen/08573a.htm">justification</a>, and the constitution of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>. An acknowledged Protestant authority, Philip Schaff (in "The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge", s.v. Reformation), sums up the principles of Protestantism in the following words:</p> <blockquote><p>The Protestant goes directly to the <a href="../bible">Word of God</a> for instruction, and to the throne of <a href="../cathen/06689a.htm">grace</a> in his <a href="../cathen/12275b.htm">devotions</a>; whilst the pious <a href="../cathen/13121a.htm">Roman Catholic</a> consults the <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">teaching</a> of his <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">church</a>, and prefers to offer his <a href="../cathen/12345b.htm">prayers</a> through the medium of the <a href="../cathen/15464b.htm">Virgin Mary</a> and the <a href="../cathen/04171a.htm">saints</a>.</p> <p>From this general principle of Evangelical freedom, and direct individual relationship of the believer to <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>, proceed the three fundamental doctrines of Protestantism — the absolute supremacy of (1) the <a href="../bible">Word</a>, and of (2) the <a href="../cathen/06689a.htm">grace</a> of <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>, and (3) the general <a href="../cathen/12409a.htm">priesthood</a> of believers. . . .</p></blockquote> <h3 id="A">Sola scriptura ("Bible alone")</h3> <p>The [first] objective [or formal] principle proclaims the <a href="../bible">canonical Scriptures</a>, especially the <a href="../cathen/14530a.htm">New Testament</a>, to be the only <a href="../cathen/07790a.htm">infallible</a> source and <a href="../cathen/05766b.htm">rule of faith</a> and practice, and asserts the <a href="../cathen/13055c.htm">right</a> of private interpretation of the same, in distinction from the <a href="../cathen/13121a.htm">Roman Catholic</a> view, which declares the <a href="../bible">Bible</a> and <a href="../cathen/15006b.htm">tradition</a> to be co-ordinate sources and <a href="../cathen/05766b.htm">rule of faith</a>, and makes <a href="../cathen/15006b.htm">tradition</a>, especially the <a href="../cathen/04670a.htm">decrees</a> of <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> and councils, the only legitimate and <a href="../cathen/07790a.htm">infallible</a> interpreter of the <a href="../bible">Bible</a>. In its extreme form Chillingworth expressed this principle of the <a href="../cathen/12700b.htm">Reformation</a> in the well-known formula, "The <a href="../cathen/10794a.htm">Bible</a>, the whole <a href="../bible">Bible</a>, and nothing but the <a href="../bible">Bible</a>, is the religion of Protestants." Protestantism, however, by no means despises or rejects church authority as such, but only subordinates it to, and measures its value by, the <a href="../bible">Bible</a>, and believes in a progressive interpretation of the <a href="../bible">Bible</a> through the expanding and deepening <a href="../cathen/04274a.htm">consciousness</a> of <a href="../cathen/03699b.htm">Christendom</a>. Hence, besides having its own symbols or standards of public doctrine, it retained all the articles of the ancient <a href="../cathen/04478a.htm">creeds</a> and a large amount of <a href="../cathen/05030a.htm">disciplinary</a> and <a href="../cathen/09306a.htm">ritual</a> <a href="../cathen/15006b.htm">tradition</a>, and rejected only those <a href="../cathen/10794a.htm">doctrines</a> and <a href="../cathen/03538b.htm">ceremonies</a> for which no clear warrant was found in the <a href="../bible">Bible</a> and which seemed to contradict its letter or spirit. The <a href="../cathen/03198a.htm">Calvinistic</a> branches of Protestantism went farther in their antagonism to the received <a href="../cathen/15006b.htm">traditions</a> than the <a href="../cathen/09458a.htm">Lutheran</a> and the <a href="../cathen/01498a.htm">Anglican</a>; but all united in rejecting the authority of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope</a> [<a href="../cathen/10151a.htm">Melanchthon</a> for a while was willing to concede this, but only <em>jure humano</em>, or a limited <a href="../cathen/05030a.htm">disciplinary</a> superintendency of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>], the <a href="../cathen/10202b.htm">meritoriousness</a> of good works, <a href="../cathen/07783a.htm">indulgences</a>, the <a href="../cathen/15459a.htm">worship of the Virgin</a>, <a href="../cathen/04171a.htm">saints</a>, and <a href="../cathen/12734a.htm">relics</a>, the <a href="../cathen/13295a.htm">sacraments</a> (other than <a href="../cathen/02258b.htm">baptism</a> and the <a href="../cathen/05572c.htm">Eucharist</a>), the <a href="../cathen/05089a.htm">dogma</a> of <a href="../cathen/05573a.htm#section3">transubstantiation</a> and the <a href="../cathen/10006a.htm">Sacrifice of the Mass</a>, <a href="../cathen/12575a.htm">purgatory</a>, and <a href="../cathen/04653a.htm">prayers for the dead</a>, <a href="../cathen/11618c.htm">auricular confession</a>, <a href="../cathen/03481a.htm">celibacy of the clergy</a>, the <a href="../cathen/10459a.htm">monastic system</a>, and the use of the <a href="../cathen/09019a.htm">Latin tongue</a> in <a href="../cathen/15710a.htm">public worship</a>, for which the vernacular languages were substituted.</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <h3 id="B">Sola fide ("faith alone")</h3> <p>The subjective principle of the <a href="../cathen/12700b.htm">Reformation</a> is <a href="../cathen/08573a.htm">justification</a> by <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> alone, or, rather, by free <a href="../cathen/06689a.htm">grace</a> through <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> operative in good works. It has reference to the personal appropriation of the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> <a href="../cathen/13407a.htm">salvation</a>, and aims to give all <a href="../cathen/06585a.htm">glory</a> to <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>, by declaring that the sinner is <a href="../cathen/08573a.htm">justified</a> before <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> (i.e. is acquitted of guilt, and declared righteous) solely on the ground of the all-sufficient <a href="../cathen/10202b.htm">merits</a> of <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a> as apprehended by a living <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>, in opposition to the theory — then prevalent, and substantially sanctioned by the <a href="../cathen/15030c.htm">Council of Trent</a> — which makes <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> and good works co-ordinate sources of <a href="../cathen/08573a.htm">justification</a>, laying the chief stress upon works. Protestantism does not depreciate good works; but it denies their value as sources or conditions of <a href="../cathen/08573a.htm">justification</a>, and insists on them as the necessary fruits of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>, and evidence of <a href="../cathen/08573a.htm">justification</a>.</p> <h3 id="C">Priesthood of all believers</h3> <p>The universal <a href="../cathen/12409a.htm">priesthood</a> of believers implies the <a href="../cathen/13055c.htm">right</a> and <a href="../cathen/05215a.htm">duty</a> of the <a href="../cathen/08748a.htm">Christian laity</a> not only to read the <a href="../bible">Bible</a> in the vernacular, but also to take part in the government and all the public affairs of the <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Church</a>. It is opposed to the <a href="../cathen/07322c.htm">hierarchical</a> system, which puts the <a href="../cathen/05543b.htm">essence</a> and authority of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> in an exclusive <a href="../cathen/12409a.htm">priesthood</a>, and makes <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">ordained</a> <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a> the necessary mediators between <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> and the people". See also Schaff "The Principle of Protestantism, German and English" (1845).</p> <h2 id="section3">Discussion of the three fundamental principles of Protestantism</h2> <h3 id="A">Sola scriptura ("Bible alone")</h3> <p>The <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">belief</a> in the <a href="../bible">Bible</a> as the sole source of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> is unhistorical, illogical, fatal to the <a href="../cathen/15472a.htm">virtue</a> of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>, and destructive of unity.</p> <p>It is unhistorical. No one denies the fact that <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a> and the <a href="../cathen/01626c.htm">Apostles</a> founded the <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Church</a> by preaching and exacting <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> in their <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrines</a>. No book told as yet of the Divinity of <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>, the redeeming value of His <a href="../cathen/11527b.htm">Passion</a>, or of His coming to judge the world; these and all similar <a href="../cathen/13005a.htm">revelations</a> had to be <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">believed</a> on the word of the Apostles, who were, as their powers showed, messengers from <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>. And those who received their word did so solely on authority. As immediate, implicit submission of the <a href="../cathen/10321a.htm">mind</a> was in the lifetime of the Apostles the only necessary token of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>, there was no room whatever for what is now called private judgment. This is quite clear from the words of <a href="../bible">Scripture</a>: "Therefore, we also give thanks to <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> without ceasing: because, that when you had received of us the word of the hearing of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, you received it not as the word of <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">men</a>, but (as it is indeed) the word of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>" (<a href="../bible/1th002.htm#vrs13">1 Thessalonians 2:13</a>). The word of hearing is received through a <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human</a> teacher and is believed on the authority of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, who is its first author (cf. <a href="../bible/rom010.htm#vrs17">Romans 10:17</a>). But, if in the time of the Apostles, <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> consisted in submitting to authorized teaching, it does so now; for the essence of things never changes and the foundation of the <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Church</a> and of our <a href="../cathen/13407a.htm">salvation</a> is immovable.</p> <p>Again, it is illogical to base <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> upon the private interpretation of a book. For <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> consists in submitting; private interpretation consists in judging. In <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> by hearing, the last word rests with the teacher; in private judgment it rests with the reader, who submits the dead text of <a href="../bible">Scripture</a> to a kind of post-mortem examination and delivers a verdict without appeal: he believes in himself rather than in any higher authority. But such trust in one's own light is not <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>. Private judgment is fatal to the theological <a href="../cathen/15472a.htm">virtue</a> of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>. <a href="../cathen/10794a.htm">John Henry Newman</a> says "I think I may assume that this <a href="../cathen/15472a.htm">virtue</a>, which was exercised by the first <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christians</a>, is not known at all amongst Protestants now; or at least if there are instances of it, it is exercised toward those, I mean their teachers and divines, who expressly disclaim that they are objects of it, and exhort their people to judge for themselves" ("Discourses to Mixed Congregations", Faith and Private Judgment). And in <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proof</a> he advances the instability of Protestant so-called <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>: "They are as children tossed to and fro and carried along by every gale of doctrine. If they had <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> they would not change. They look upon the simple <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> of <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholics</a> as if unworthy the dignity of <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human</a> <a href="../cathen/10715a.htm">nature</a>, as slavish and foolish". Yet upon that simple, unquestioning <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> was built up and is held together to this day.</p> <p>Where absolute reliance on <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God's</a> word, proclaimed by his accredited ambassadors, is wanting, i.e. where there is not the <a href="../cathen/15472a.htm">virtue</a> of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>, there can be no unity of Church. It stands to <a href="../cathen/12673b.htm">reason</a>, and Protestant history confirms it. The "unhappy divisions", not only between <a href="../cathen/13674a.htm">sect</a> and <a href="../cathen/13674a.htm">sect</a> but within the same <a href="../cathen/13674a.htm">sect</a>, have become a byword. They are due to the <a href="../cathen/12405a.htm">pride</a> of private <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">intellect</a>, and they can only be healed by <a href="../cathen/07543b.htm">humble</a> submission to a Divine authority.</p> <h3 id="B">Sola fide (justification by "faith alone")</h3> <p>See the separate article <a href="../cathen/08573a.htm">J<font size=-2>USTIFICATION</font></a>.</p> <h3 id="C">Priesthood of all believers</h3> <p>The "universal <a href="../cathen/12409a.htm">priesthood</a> of believers" is a fond fancy which goes well with the other fundamental tenets of Protestantism. For, if every man is his own supreme teacher and is able to <a href="../cathen/08573a.htm">justify</a> himself by an easy <a href="../cathen/01115a.htm">act</a> of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>, there is no further need of <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">ordained</a> teachers and <a href="../cathen/10326a.htm">ministers</a> of sacrifice and <a href="../cathen/13295a.htm">sacraments</a>. The <a href="../cathen/13295a.htm">sacraments</a> themselves, in fact, become superfluous. The abolition of <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>, <a href="../cathen/13309a.htm">sacrifices</a>, and <a href="../cathen/13295a.htm">sacraments</a> is the <a href="../cathen/09324a.htm">logical</a> consequence of <a href="../cathen/05781a.htm">false</a> premises, i.e. the <a href="../cathen/13055c.htm">right</a> of private judgment and <a href="../cathen/08573a.htm">justification</a> by <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> alone; it is, therefore, as illusory as these. It is moreover contrary to <a href="../bible">Scripture</a>, to <a href="../cathen/15006b.htm">tradition</a>, to <a href="../cathen/12673b.htm">reason</a>. The Protestant position is that the <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> had originally been representatives of the people, deriving all their power from them, and only doing, for the sake of order and convenience, what <a href="../cathen/08748a.htm">laymen</a> might do also. But <a href="../bible">Scripture</a> speaks of <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a>, <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priests</a>, <a href="../cathen/04647c.htm">deacons</a> as invested with spiritual powers not possessed by the community at large, and transmitted by an external sign, the <a href="../cathen/07698a.htm">imposition of hands</a>, thus creating a separate order, a <a href="../cathen/07322a.htm">hierarchy</a>. <a href="../bible">Scripture</a> shows the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> starting with an <a href="../cathen/11279a.htm">ordained</a> <a href="../cathen/12409a.htm">priesthood</a> as its central element. <a href="../cathen/07365a.htm">History</a> likewise shows this <a href="../cathen/12409a.htm">priesthood</a> living on in unbroken succession to the present day in East and <a href="../cathen/09022a.htm">West</a>, even in Churches separated from <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Rome</a>. And <a href="../cathen/12673b.htm">reason</a> requires such an institution; a society confessedly established to continue the saving work of <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a> must possess and perpetuate His saving power; it must have a teaching and ministering order commissioned by <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>, as <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a> was commissioned by <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>; "As the Father has sent me, I also send you" (<a href="../bible/joh020.htm#vrs21">John 20:21</a>). <a href="../cathen/13674a.htm">Sects</a> which are at best shadows of <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Churches</a> wax and wane with the <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priestly</a> powers they subconsciously or instinctively attribute to their pastors, elders, <a href="../cathen/10326a.htm">ministers</a>, preachers, and other leaders.</p> <h2 id="section4">Private judgment in practice</h2> <p>At first sight it seems that private judgment as a <a href="../cathen/05766b.htm">rule of faith</a> would at once dissolve all <a href="../cathen/04478a.htm">creeds</a> and confessions into individual opinions, thus making impossible any <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">church</a> life based upon a common <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>. For <em>quot capita tot sensus:</em> no two <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">men</a> think exactly alike on any subject. Yet we are faced by the fact that Protestant churches have lived through several centuries and have moulded the character not only of individuals but of whole nations; that millions of <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">souls</a> have found and are finding in them the spiritual food which satisfies their spiritual cravings; that their missionary and <a href="../cathen/03592a.htm">charitable</a> activity is covering wide fields at home and abroad. The apparent incongruity does not exist in reality, for private judgment is never and nowhere allowed full play in the framing of <a href="../cathen/12738a.htm">religions</a>. The open <a href="../bible">Bible</a> and the open <a href="../cathen/10321a.htm">mind</a> on its interpretation are rather a lure to entice the masses, by flattering their <a href="../cathen/12405a.htm">pride</a> and deceiving their <a href="../cathen/07648a.htm">ignorance</a>, than a workable principle of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>.</p> <p>The first limitation imposed on the application of private judgment is the incapacity of most <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">men</a> to judge for themselves on matters above their physical needs. How many <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christians</a> are made by the tons of Testaments distributed by missionaries to the <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathen</a>? What religion could even a well-schooled man extract from the <a href="../bible">Bible</a> if he had nought but his brain and his book to guide him? The second limitation arises from environment and prejudices. The assumed <a href="../cathen/13055c.htm">right</a> of private judgment is not exercised until the <a href="../cathen/10321a.htm">mind</a> is already stocked with <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">ideas</a> and notions supplied by <a href="../cathen/05782a.htm">family</a> and community, foremost among these being the current conceptions of <a href="../cathen/05089a.htm">religious dogmas</a> and <a href="../cathen/05215a.htm">duties</a>. People are said to be <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholics</a>, Protestants, <a href="../cathen/10424a.htm">Mahommedans</a>, <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">Pagans</a> "by birth", because the environment in which they are born invariably endows them with the local religion long before they are able to judge and choose for themselves. And the firm hold which this initial training gets on the <a href="../cathen/10321a.htm">mind</a> is well illustrated by the fewness of changes in later life. Conversions from one <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">belief</a> to another are of comparatively rare occurrence. The number of <a href="../cathen/04347a.htm">converts</a> in any denomination compared to the number of stauncher adherents is a negligible quantity. Even where private judgment has led to the conviction that some other form of religion is preferable to the one professed, <a href="../cathen/04347a.htm">conversion</a> is not always achieved. The <a href="../cathen/04347a.htm">convert</a>, beside and beyond his <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>, must have sufficient strength of will to break with old associations, old friendships, old habits, and to face the uncertainties of life in new surroundings. His sense of <a href="../cathen/05215a.htm">duty</a>, in many eases, must be of heroical temper.</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>A third limitation put on the exercise of private judgment is the authority of <a href="../cathen/14250c.htm">Church and State</a>. The <a href="../cathen/12700b.htm">Reformers</a> took full advantage of their emancipation from papal authority, but they showed no inclination to allow their followers the same freedom. <a href="../cathen/09438b.htm">Luther</a>, <a href="../cathen/15772a.htm">Zwingli</a>, <a href="../cathen/03195b.htm">Calvin</a>, and <a href="../cathen/08680a.htm">Knox</a> were as intolerant of private judgment when it went against their own conceits as any <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope</a> in <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Rome</a> was ever intolerant of <a href="../cathen/07256b.htm">heresy</a>. Confessions of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>, symbols, and <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">catechism</a> were set up everywhere, and were invariably backed by the <a href="../cathen/02137c.htm">secular power</a>. In fact, the <a href="../cathen/02137c.htm">secular power</a> in the several parts of <a href="../cathen/06484b.htm">Germany</a>, <a href="../cathen/05445a.htm">England</a>, <a href="../cathen/13613a.htm">Scotland</a>, and elsewhere has had more to do with the moulding of <a href="../cathen/13674a.htm">religious denominations</a> than private judgment and <a href="../cathen/08573a.htm">justification</a> by <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> alone. Rulers were guided by political and material considerations in their adherence to particular forms of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>, and they usurped the <a href="../cathen/13055c.htm">right</a> of imposing their own choice on their subjects, regardless of private opinions: <em>cujus regio hujus religio</em>.</p> <p>The above considerations show that the first Protestant principle, free judgment, never influenced the Protestant masses at large. Its influence is limited to a few leaders of the movement, to the men who by dint of strong character were capable of creating separate <a href="../cathen/13674a.htm">sects</a>. They indeed spurned the authority of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Old Church</a>, but soon transferred it to their own persons and institutions, if not to secular princes. How mercilessly the new authority was exercised is matter of <a href="../cathen/07365a.htm">history</a>. Moreover, in the course of <a href="../cathen/14726a.htm">time</a>, private judgment has ripened into unbridled <a href="../cathen/06258b.htm">freethought</a>, <a href="../cathen/12652a.htm">Rationalism</a>, <a href="../cathen/10415a.htm">Modernism</a>, now rampant in most <a href="../cathen/15188a.htm">universities</a>, cultured society, and the Press. Planted by <a href="../cathen/09438b.htm">Luther</a> and other reformers the seed took no root, or soon withered, among the half-educated masses who still clung to authority or were coerced by the <a href="../cathen/02137c.htm">secular arm</a>; but it flourished and produced its full fruit chiefly in the <a href="../cathen/13554b.htm">schools</a> and among the ranks of society which draw their <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">intellectual</a> life from that source. The modern Press is at <a href="../cathen/08004a.htm">infinite</a> pains to spread free judgment and its latest results to the reading public.</p> <p>It should be remarked that the first Protestants, without exception, pretended to be the <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> founded by <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>, and all retained the <a href="../cathen/01629a.htm">Apostles' Creed</a> with the article "I <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">believe</a> in the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>". The fact of their <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> origin and surroundings accounts both for their good intention and for the confessions of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> to which they bound themselves. Yet such confessions, if there be any <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a> in the assertion that private judgment and the open <a href="../bible">Bible</a> are the only sources of Protestant <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>, are directly antagonistic to the Protestant spirit. This is recognized, among others, by J. H. Blunt, who writes: "The mere existence of such confessions of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> as binding on all or any of the members of the <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> community is inconsistent with the great principles on which the Protestant bodies justified their separation from the <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Church</a>, the <a href="../cathen/13055c.htm">right</a> of private judgment. Has not any member as just a <a href="../cathen/13055c.htm">right</a> to criticise and to reject them as his forefathers had a <a href="../cathen/13055c.htm">right</a> to reject the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/04478a.htm">creeds</a> or the canons of <a href="../cathen/04423f.htm">general councils</a>? They appear to violate another prominent doctrine of the <a href="../cathen/12700b.htm">Reformers</a>, the sufficiency of <a href="../bible">Holy Scripture</a> to <a href="../cathen/13407a.htm">salvation</a>. If the <a href="../bible">Bible</a> alone is enough, what need is there for adding articles? If it is rejoined that they are not additions to, but merely explanations of, the <a href="../bible">Word of God</a>, the further question arises, amid the many explanations, more or less at variance with each other given by the different <a href="../cathen/13674a.htm">sects</a> of Protestantism, who is to decide which is the <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> one? Their professed object being to secure uniformity, the experience of three hundred years has <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proved</a> to us what may not have been foreseen by their originators, that they have had a diametrically opposite result, and have been productive not of union but of variance" (Dict. of Sects, Heresies, etc.", London, 1886, s.v. Protestant Confessions of Faith).</p> <p>By pinning private judgment to the <a href="../bible">Bible</a> the <a href="../cathen/12700b.htm">Reformers</a> started a book religion, i.e. a religion of which, theoretically, <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">law</a> of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> and conduct is contained in a written document without method, without authority, without an authorized interpreter. The collection of books called <a href="../bible">"the Bible"</a> is not a methodical code of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> and <a href="../cathen/10559a.htm">morals</a>; if it be separated from the stream of <a href="../cathen/15006b.htm">tradition</a> which asserts its <a href="../cathen/08045a.htm">Divine inspiration</a>, it has no special authority, and, in the hands of private interpreters, its meaning is easily twisted to suit every private <a href="../cathen/10321a.htm">mind</a>. Our modern <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">laws</a>, elaborated by modern <a href="../cathen/10321a.htm">minds</a> for modern requirements, are daily obscured and diverted from their object by interested pleaders: judges are an absolute <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessity</a> for their right interpretation and application, and unless we say that religion is but a personal concern, that coherent religious bodies or churches are superfluous, we must admit that judges of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> and <a href="../cathen/10559a.htm">morals</a> are as <a href="../cathen/10733a.htm">necessary</a> to them as judges of <a href="../cathen/09066a.htm">civil law</a> are to States. And that is another reason why private judgment, though upheld in theory, has not been carried out in practice. As a matter of fact, all Protestant <a href="../cathen/13674a.htm">denominations</a> are under constituted authorities, be they called <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">priest</a> or <a href="../cathen/12406a.htm">presbyters</a>, elders or <a href="../cathen/10326a.htm">ministers</a>, <a href="../cathen/11537b.htm">pastors</a> or presidents. Notwithstanding the contradiction between the freedom they proclaim and the obedience they exact, their rule has often been tyrannical to a degree, especially in <a href="../cathen/03198a.htm">Calvinistic</a> communities. Thus in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there was no more priest-ridden country in the world than <a href="../cathen/12392b.htm">Presbyterian</a> <a href="../cathen/13613a.htm">Scotland</a>. A book-religion has, moreover, another drawback. Its devotees can draw devotion from it only as <a href="../cathen/06052b.htm">fetish worshippers</a> draw it from their idol, viz. by firmly believing in its hidden spirit. Remove <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">belief</a> in <a href="../cathen/08045a.htm">Divine inspiration</a> from the <a href="../bible">sacred books</a>, and what remains may be regarded as simply a <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human</a> document of religious illusion or even of <a href="../cathen/06249a.htm">fraud</a>. Now, in the course of centuries, private judgment has partly succeeded in taking the spirit out of the <a href="../bible">Bible</a>, leaving little else than the letter, for critics, high and low, to discuss without any spiritual advantage.</p> <h2 id="section5">"justification by faith alone" in practice</h2> <p>This principle bears upon conduct, unlike free judgment, which bears on <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>. It is not subject to the same limitations, for its practical application requires less <a href="../cathen/10321a.htm">mental</a> capacity; its working cannot be tested by anyone; it is strictly personal and internal, thus escaping such <a href="../cathen/15446a.htm">violent</a> conflicts with community or state as would lead to repression. On the other hand, as it evades coercion, lends itself to practical application at every step in <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">man's</a> life, and favours <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">man's</a> inclination to <a href="../cathen/05649a.htm">evil</a> by rendering a so-called <a href="../cathen/04347a.htm">"conversion"</a> ludicrously easy, its baneful influence on <a href="../cathen/10559a.htm">morals</a> is manifest. Add to <a href="../cathen/08573a.htm">justification</a> by <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> alone the doctrines of <a href="../cathen/12378a.htm">predestination</a> to <a href="../cathen/07170a.htm">heaven</a> or <a href="../cathen/07207a.htm">hell</a> regardless of <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">man's</a> actions, and the slavery of the <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human</a> will, and it seems inconceivable that any good action at all could result from such <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">beliefs</a>. As a matter of <a href="../cathen/07365a.htm">history</a>, public <a href="../cathen/10559a.htm">morality</a> did at once deteriorate to an appalling degree wherever Protestantism was introduced. Not to mention the robberies of <a href="../cathen/12466a.htm">Church goods</a>, brutal treatment meted out to the <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a>, <a href="../cathen/13675a.htm">secular</a> and <a href="../cathen/12722c.htm">regular</a>, who remained faithful, and the horrors of so many <a href="../cathen/15546c.htm">wars</a> of religion, we have <a href="../cathen/09438b.htm">Luther's</a> own testimony as to the <a href="../cathen/05649a.htm">evil</a> results of his teaching (see <a href="../cathen/08284c.htm">Janssen</a>, "History of the German People", Eng. tr., vol. V, London and St. Louis, 1908, 27-83, where each quotation is documented by a reference to <a href="../cathen/09438b.htm">Luther's</a> works as published by de Wette).</p> <h2 id="section6">Advent of a new order: Cæsaropapism</h2> <p>A similar picture of religious and <a href="../cathen/10559a.htm">moral</a> degradation may easily be drawn from contemporary Protestant writers for all countries after the first introduction of Protestantism. It could not be otherwise. The immense fermentation caused by the introduction of subversive principles into the life of a people naturally brings to the surface and shows in its utmost ugliness all that is brutal in <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human</a> <a href="../cathen/10715a.htm">nature</a>. But only for a time. The ferment exhausts itself, the fermentation subsides, and order reappears, possibly under new forms. The new form of social and religious order, which is the residue of the great Protestant upheaval in <a href="../cathen/05607b.htm">Europe</a>, is territorial or State Religion — an order based on the religious supremacy of the temporal ruler, in contradistinction to the old order in which the temporal ruler took an <a href="../cathen/11176a.htm">oath</a> of obedience to the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>. For the right understanding of Protestantism it is necessary to describe the genesis of this far-reaching change.</p> <p><a href="../cathen/09438b.htm">Luther's</a> first reformatory attempts were radically democratic. He sought to benefit the people at large by curtailing the powers of both <a href="../cathen/14250c.htm">Church and State</a>. The German princes, to him, were "usually the biggest fools or the worst scoundrels on earth". In 1523 he wrote: "The people will not, cannot, shall not endure your tyranny and oppression any longer. The world is not now what it was formerly, when you could chase and drive the people like game". This manifesto, addressed to the poorer masses, was taken up by Franz von Sickingen, a Knight of the Empire, who entered the field in execution of its threats. His object was two-fold: to strengthen the political power of the <a href="../cathen/03691a.htm">knights</a> — the inferior nobility — against the princes, and to open the road to the new Gospel by overthrowing the <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a>. His enterprise had, however, the opposite result. The <a href="../cathen/03691a.htm">knights</a> were beaten; they lost what influence they had possessed, and the princes were proportionately strengthened. The rising of the peasants likewise turned to the advantage of the princes: the fearful slaughter of Frankenhausen (1525) left the princes without an enemy and the new Gospel without its natural defenders. The victorious princes used their augmented power entirely for their own advantage in opposition to the <a href="../cathen/02137c.htm">authority</a> of the emperor and the freedom of the nation; the new Gospel was also to be made subservient to this end, and this by the help of <a href="../cathen/09438b.htm">Luther</a> himself.</p> <p>After the failure of the revolution, <a href="../cathen/09438b.htm">Luther</a> and <a href="../cathen/10151a.htm">Melanchthon</a> began to proclaim the doctrine of the rulers' unlimited power over their subjects. Their dissolving principles had, within less than ten years, destroyed the existing order, but were unable to knit together its debris into a new system. So the <a href="../cathen/02137c.htm">secular powers</a> were called on for help; the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> was placed at the service of the State, its authority, its <a href="../cathen/15571a.htm">wealth</a>, its institutions all passed into the hands of kings, princes, and town magistrates. The one discarded <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">Pope of Rome</a> was replaced by scores of <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> at home. These, "to strengthen themselves by alliances for the <a href="../cathen/12454b.htm">promulgation</a> of the Gospel", banded together within the limits of the <a href="../cathen/06484b.htm">German Empire</a> and made common cause against the emperor. From this time forward the progress of Protestantism is on political rather than on religious lines; the people are not clamouring for innovations, but the rulers find their advantage in being supreme <a href="../cathen/02581b.htm">bishops</a>, and by force, or cunning, or both impose the yoke of the new Gospel on their subjects. <a href="../cathen/04722c.htm">Denmark</a>, <a href="../cathen/14347a.htm">Sweden</a>, <a href="../cathen/11117b.htm">Norway</a>, <a href="../cathen/05445a.htm">England</a>, and all the small principalities and imperial towns in <a href="../cathen/06484b.htm">Germany</a> are examples in point. The supreme heads and governors were well aware that the principles which had brought down the authority of <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Rome</a> would equally bring down their own; hence the <a href="../cathen/11611c.htm">penal laws</a> everywhere enacted against dissenters from the state religion decreed by the temporal ruler. <a href="../cathen/05445a.htm">England</a> under <a href="../cathen/07222a.htm">Henry VIII</a>, Elizabeth, and the <a href="../cathen/12581a.htm">Puritans</a> elaborated the most ferocious of all penal codes against <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholics</a> and others unwilling to conform to the <a href="../cathen/01498a.htm">established religion</a>.</p> <p>To sum up: the much-vaunted Protestant principles only wrought disaster and confusion where they were allowed free play; order was only restored by reverting to something like the old system: symbols of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> imposed by an outside authority and enforced by the <a href="../cathen/02137c.htm">secular arm</a>. No bond of union exists between the many national Churches, except their common hatred for "Rome", which is the birthmark of all, and the trade-mark of many, even unto our day.</p> <h2 id="section7">Rapidity of Protestant progress explained</h2> <p>Before we pass on to the study of contemporary Protestantism, we will answer a question and solve a difficulty. How is the rapid spread of Protestantism accounted for? Is it not a <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proof</a> that <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> was on the side of the <a href="../cathen/12700b.htm">Reformers</a>, inspiring, fostering, and crowning their endeavours? Surely, as we consider the growth of early <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a> and its rapid conquest of the Roman Empire, as <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proofs</a> of its Divine origin, so we should draw the same conclusion in favour of Protestantism from its rapid spread in <a href="../cathen/06484b.htm">Germany</a> and the northern parts of <a href="../cathen/05607b.htm">Europe</a>. In fact the <a href="../cathen/12700b.htm">Reformation</a> spread much faster than the <a href="../cathen/01626c.htm">Apostolic</a> <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>. When the last of the Apostles died, no kingdoms, no vast tracts of lands, were entirely <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a>; <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a> was still hiding in the <a href="../cathen/03417b.htm">catacombs</a> and in out-of-the-way suburbs of <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathen</a> towns. Whereas, in a period of similar duration, say seventy years, Protestantism had taken hold of the better part of <a href="../cathen/06484b.htm">Germany</a>, Scandinavia, <a href="../cathen/14358a.htm">Switzerland</a>, <a href="../cathen/05445a.htm">England</a>, and <a href="../cathen/13613a.htm">Scotland</a>. A moment's consideration supplies the solution of this difficulty. Success is not invariably due to intrinsic <a href="../cathen/06636b.htm">goodness</a>, nor is failure a certain <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proof</a> of intrinsic badness. Both largely depend on circumstances: on the means employed, the obstacles in the way, the receptivity of the public. The success of Protestantism, therefore, must itself be tested before it can be used as a test of intrinsic <a href="../cathen/06636b.htm">goodness</a>.</p> <p>The reformatory movement of the sixteenth century found the ground well prepared for its reception. The cry for a thorough reformation of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> in head and members had been ringing through <a href="../cathen/05607b.htm">Europe</a> for a full century; it was justified by the worldly lives of many of the <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a>, high and low, by abuses in <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">church</a> administration, by money extortions, by the neglect of religious <a href="../cathen/05215a.htm">duties</a> reaching far and wide through the body of the <a href="../cathen/05769a.htm">faithful</a>. Had Protestantism offered a reform in the sense of amendment, probably all the corrupt elements in the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> would have turned against it, as <a href="../cathen/08399a.htm">Jews</a> and <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">pagans</a> turned against <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a> and the <a href="../cathen/01626c.htm">Apostles</a>. But what the <a href="../cathen/12700b.htm">Reformers</a> aimed at was, at least in the first instance, the radical overthrow of the existing <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, and this overthrow was effected by pandering to all the worst <a href="../cathen/08050b.htm">instincts</a> of <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">man</a>. A bait was tendered to the seven-headed <a href="../cathen/04208a.htm">concupiscence</a> which dwells in every <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human</a> heart; <a href="../cathen/12405a.htm">pride</a>, <a href="../cathen/04462a.htm">covetousness</a>, <a href="../cathen/09438a.htm">lust</a>, <a href="../cathen/01489a.htm">anger</a>, <a href="../cathen/06590a.htm">gluttony</a>, <a href="../cathen/08326b.htm">envy</a>, <a href="../cathen/14057c.htm">sloth</a>, and all their offspring were covered and healed by easy trust in <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>. No good works were required: the immense fortune of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> was the prize of apostasy: political and religous independence allured the kings and princes: the abolition of <a href="../cathen/14741b.htm">tithes</a>, confession, <a href="../cathen/05789c.htm">fasting</a>, and other irksome <a href="../cathen/11189a.htm">obligations</a> attracted the masses. Many <a href="../cathen/11726a.htm">persons</a> were deceived into the new religion by outward appearances of <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholicism</a> which the innovators carefully maintained, e.g. in <a href="../cathen/05445a.htm">England</a> and the Scandinavian kingdoms. Evidently we need not look for Divine intervention to account for the rapid spread of Protestantism. It would be more plausible to see the finger of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> in the stopping of its progress.</p> <h2 id="section8">Present-day Protestantism</h2> <h3>Theology</h3> <p>After nearly four centuries of existence, Protestantism in <a href="../cathen/05607b.htm">Europe</a> is still the religion of millions, but it is no more the original Protestantism. It has been, and is, in a perpetual flux: the principle of untrammelled free judgment, or, as it is now called, Subjectivism, has been swaying its adherents to and fro from <a href="../cathen/11330a.htm">orthodoxy</a> to <a href="../cathen/12080c.htm">Pietism</a>, from <a href="../cathen/12652a.htm">Rationalism</a> to <a href="../cathen/07759a.htm">Indifferentism</a>. The movement has been most pronounced in intellectual centres, in <a href="../cathen/15188a.htm">universities</a> and among <a href="../cathen/14580x.htm">theologians</a> generally, yet it has spread down to the lowest classes. The modern <a href="../cathen/13086a.htm">Ritschl-Harnack</a> school, also called <a href="../cathen/10415a.htm">Modernism</a>, has disciples everywhere and not only among Protestants. For an accurate and exhaustive survey of its main lines of thought we refer the reader to the <a href="../cathen/05413a.htm">Encyclical</a> "Pascendi Dominici Gregis" (8 Sept., 1907), the professed aim of which is to defend the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> against Protestant infiltrations. In one point, indeed, the <a href="../cathen/10415a.htm">Modernist</a> condemned by <a href="../cathen/12137a.htm">Pius X</a> differs from his <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">intellectual</a> brothers: he remains, and wishes to remain, inside the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, in order to leaven it with his <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">ideas</a>; the other stands frankly outside, an enemy or a supercilious student of religious evolution. It should also be noted that not every item of the <a href="../cathen/10415a.htm">Modernist</a> programme need be traced to the <a href="../cathen/12700b.htm">Protestant Reformation</a>; for the modern spirit is the distilled residue of many <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophies</a> and many <a href="../cathen/12738a.htm">religions</a>: the point is that Protestantism proclaims itself its standard-bearer, and claims credit for its achievements.</p> <p>Moreover, <a href="../cathen/10415a.htm">Modernistic</a> views in <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophy</a>, <a href="../cathen/14580x.htm">theology</a>, <a href="../cathen/07365a.htm">history</a>, criticism, <a href="../cathen/01618a.htm">apologetics</a>, <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">church</a> reform etc., are advocated in nine-tenths of the Protestant <a href="../cathen/14580x.htm">theological</a> literature in <a href="../cathen/06484b.htm">Germany</a>, <a href="../cathen/06166a.htm">France</a>, and America, <a href="../cathen/05445a.htm">England</a> only slightly lagging behind. Now, <a href="../cathen/10415a.htm">Modernism</a> is at the antipodes of sixteenth-century Protestantism. To use <a href="../cathen/13086a.htm">Ritschl's</a> terminology, it gives new "values" to the old <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">beliefs</a>. <a href="../bible">Scripture</a> is still spoken of as <a href="../cathen/08045a.htm">inspired</a>, but its <a href="../cathen/08045a.htm">inspiration</a> is only the impassioned expression of <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human</a> religious experiences; <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a> is the <a href="../cathen/14142b.htm">Son of God</a>, but His Son-ship is like that of any other good <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">man</a>; the very <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">ideas</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, religion, <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, <a href="../cathen/13295a.htm">sacraments</a>, have lost their old values: they stand for nothing real outside the subject in whose <a href="../cathen/12748b.htm">religious life</a> they form a kind of fool's paradise. The fundamental fact of <a href="../cathen/12789a.htm">Christ's Resurrection</a> is an historical fact no longer; it is but another freak of the <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">believing</a> <a href="../cathen/10321a.htm">mind</a>. Harnack puts the essence of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a>, that is the whole teaching of <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a>, into the Fatherhood of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> and the Brotherhood of <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">man</a>: <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a> Himself is no part of the Gospel! Such was not the teaching of the <a href="../cathen/12700b.htm">Reformers</a>. Present-day Protestantism, therefore, may be compared with <a href="../cathen/06592a.htm">Gnosticism</a>, <a href="../cathen/09591a.htm">Manichæism</a>, the <a href="../cathen/12765b.htm">Renaissance</a>, eighteenth-century Philosophism, in so far as these were virulent attacks on <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a>, aiming at nothing less than its destruction. It has achieved important victories in a kind of civil <a href="../cathen/15546c.htm">war</a> between <a href="../cathen/11330a.htm">orthodoxy</a> and unbelief within the Protestant pale; it is no mean enemy at the gate of the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>.</p> <h2 id="section9">Popular Protestantism</h2> <p>In <a href="../cathen/06484b.htm">Germany</a>, especially in the greater towns, Protestantism, as a positive guide in <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> and <a href="../cathen/10559a.htm">morals</a>, is rapidly dying out. It has lost all hold of the working classes. Its <a href="../cathen/10326a.htm">ministers</a>, when not themselves infidels, fold their hands in helpless despair. The old <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> is but little preached and with little profit. The ministerial energies are turned towards <a href="../cathen/03592a.htm">works of charity</a>, foreign missions, polemics against <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholics</a>. Among the English-speaking nations things seem just a little better. Here the grip of Protestantism on the masses was much tighter than in <a href="../cathen/06484b.htm">Germany</a>, the Wesleyan revival and the High Church party among <a href="../cathen/01498a.htm">Anglicans</a> did much to keep some <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> alive, and the deleterious teaching of <a href="../cathen/05445a.htm">English</a> <a href="../cathen/04679b.htm">Deists</a> and <a href="../cathen/12652a.htm">Rationalists</a> did not penetrate into the heart of the people. <a href="../cathen/12392b.htm">Presbyterianism</a> in <a href="../cathen/13613a.htm">Scotland</a> and elsewhere has also shown more vitality than less well-organized <a href="../cathen/13674a.htm">sects</a>. "England", says J.R. Green, "became the people of a book", and that book was the <a href="../bible">Bible</a>. It was as yet the one English book which was familiar to every Englishman; it was read in the churches and read at home, and everywhere its words, as they fell on ears which custom had not deadened, kindled a startling enthusiasm. . . . So far as the nation at large was concerned, no history, no romance, hardly any poetry, save the little-known verse of <a href="../cathen/03642b.htm">Chaucer</a>, existed in the English tongue when the <a href="../bible">Bible</a> was ordered to be set up in churches. . . . The power of the book over the mass of Englishmen showed itself in a thousand superficial ways, and in none more conspicuously than in the influence exerted on ordinary speech. . . . But far greater than its effect on <a href="../cathen/08245a.htm">literature</a> or social phrase was the effect of the <a href="../bible">Bible</a> on the character of the people at large . . . (Hist. of the English People, chap. viii, 1).</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <h2 id="section10">Protestantism and progress</h2> <h3 id="A">Prejudices</h3> <p>The <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human</a> <a href="../cathen/10321a.htm">mind</a> is so constituted that it colours with its own previous conceptions any new notion that presents itself for acceptance. Though <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a> be objective and of its <a href="../cathen/10715a.htm">nature</a> one and unchangeable, personal conditions are largely relative, dependent on preconceptions, and changeable. The arguments, for example, which three hundred years ago convinced our fathers of the existence of <a href="../cathen/15674a.htm">witches</a> and sent millions of them to the torture and the stake, make no impression on our more enlightened <a href="../cathen/10321a.htm">minds</a>. The same may be said of the whole <a href="../cathen/12700b.htm">theological controversy</a> of the sixteenth century. To the modern <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">man</a> it is a dark body, of whose existence he is aware, but whose contact he avoids. With the controversies have gone the coarse, unscrupulous methods of attack. The adversaries are now facing each other like parliamentarians of opposite parties, with a common desire of polite fairness, no longer like armed troopers only intent on killing, by fair means or foul. Exceptions there are still, but only at low depths in the literary strata. Whence this change of behaviour, notwithstanding the identity of positions? Because we are more reasonable, more civilized; because we have evolved from <a href="../cathen/10285c.htm">medieval</a> darkness to modern comparative light. And whence this progress? Here Protestantism puts in its claim, that, by freeing the <a href="../cathen/10321a.htm">mind</a> from <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Roman</a> thraldom, it opened the way for religious and political liberty; for untrammelled evolution on the basis of self-reliance; for a higher standard of <a href="../cathen/10559a.htm">morality</a>; for the advancement of <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">science</a> — in short for every<a href="../cathen/06636b.htm">good</a> thing that has come into the world since the <a href="../cathen/12700b.htm">Reformation</a>. With the majority of non-Catholics, this notion has hardened into a prejudice which no reasoning can break up: the following discussion, therefore, shall not be a battle royal for final victory, but rather a peaceful review of facts and principles.</p> <h3 id="B">Progress in Church and churches</h3> <p>The <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> of the twentieth century is vastly in advance of that of the sixteenth. She has made up her loss in political power and worldly <a href="../cathen/15571a.htm">wealth</a> by increased spiritual influences and efficiency; her adherents are more widespread, more numerous, more <a href="../cathen/15753a.htm">fervent</a> than at any time in her <a href="../cathen/07365a.htm">history</a>, and they are bound to the central Government at <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Rome</a> by a more filial affection and a clearer sense of <a href="../cathen/05215a.htm">duty</a>. <a href="../cathen/11164a.htm">Religious</a> <a href="../cathen/05295b.htm">education</a> is abundantly provided for <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> and <a href="../cathen/08748a.htm">laity</a>; religious practice, <a href="../cathen/10559a.htm">morality</a>, and <a href="../cathen/03592a.htm">works of charity</a> are flourishing; the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> mission-field is world-wide and rich in harvest. The <a href="../cathen/07322c.htm">hierarchy</a> was never so united, never so devoted to the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">pope</a>. The <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Roman</a> unity is successfully resisting the inroads of <a href="../cathen/13674a.htm">sects</a>, of <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophies</a>, of politics. Can our separated brethren tell a similar tale of their many Churches, even in lands where they are ruled and backed by the <a href="../cathen/02137c.htm">secular power</a>? We do not rejoice at their disintegration, at their falling into <a href="../cathen/07759a.htm">religious indifference</a>, or returning into political parties. No, for any shred of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a> is better than blank worldliness. But we do draw this conclusion: that after four centuries the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> principle of authority is still working out the <a href="../cathen/13407a.htm">salvation</a> of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, whereas among Protestants the principle of Subjectivism is destroying what remains of their former <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a> and driving multitudes into <a href="../cathen/07759a.htm">religious indifference</a> and estrangement from the <a href="../cathen/14336b.htm">supernatural</a>.</p> <h3 id="C">Progress in civil society</h3> <p>The political and social organization of <a href="../cathen/05607b.htm">Europe</a> has undergone greater changes than the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Churches</a>. Royal prerogatives, like that exercised, for instance, by the Tudor dynasty in <a href="../cathen/05445a.htm">England</a>, are gone for ever. "The prerogative was absolute, both in theory and in practice. Government was identified with the will of the sovereign, his word was law for the <a href="../cathen/04268a.htm">conscience</a> as well as the conduct of his subjects" (Brewer, "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic etc.", II, pt. I, 1, p. ccxxiv). Nowhere now is <a href="../cathen/11703a.htm">persecution</a> for <a href="../cathen/04268a.htm">conscience'</a> sake inscribed on the national statute-books, or left to the caprice of the rulers. Where still carried on it is the work of anti-religious passion temporarily in power, rather than the expression of the national will; at any rate it has lost much of its former barbarity. <a href="../cathen/05295b.htm">Education</a> is placed within reach of the poorest and lowest. The punishment of crime is no longer an occasion for the spectacular display of human cruelty to <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human beings</a>. <a href="../cathen/12324a.htm">Poverty</a> is largely prevented and largely relieved. Wars diminish in number and are waged with humanity; atrocities like those of the <a href="../cathen/14648b.htm">Thirty Years War</a> in <a href="../cathen/06484b.htm">Germany</a>, the <a href="../cathen/07527b.htm">Huguenot</a> <a href="../cathen/15546c.htm">wars</a> in <a href="../cathen/06166a.htm">France</a>, the Spanish <a href="../cathen/15546c.htm">wars</a> in the <a href="../cathen/10759a.htm">Netherlands</a>, and Cromwell's invasion of <a href="../cathen/08098b.htm">Ireland</a> are gone beyond the possibility of return. The witch-finder, the witchburner, the <a href="../cathen/08026a.htm">inquisitor</a>, the disbanded mercenary soldier have ceased to plague the people. <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">Science</a> has been able to check the outbursts of pestilence, cholera, smallpox, and other epidemics; <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human</a> <a href="../cathen/09238c.htm">life</a> has been lengthened and its amenities increased a hundredfold. Steam and electricity in the service of industry, trade, and international communication, are even now drawing <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">humanity</a> together into one vast <a href="../cathen/05782a.htm">family</a>, with many common interests and a tendency to uniform civilization. From the sixteenth to the twentieth century there has indeed been progress. Who have been its chief promoters? <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholics</a>, or Protestants, or neither?</p> <p>The civil <a href="../cathen/15546c.htm">wars</a> and revolutions of the seventeenth century which put an end to the royal prerogatives in <a href="../cathen/05445a.htm">England</a>, and set up a real government of the people by the people, were religious throughout and Protestant to the core. "Liberty of <a href="../cathen/04268a.htm">conscience</a>" was the cry of the <a href="../cathen/12581a.htm">Puritans</a>, which, however, meant liberty for themselves against established Episcopacy. Tyrannical abuse of their victory in oppressing the <a href="../cathen/12493a.htm">Episcopalians</a> brought about their downfall, and they in turn were the victims of intolerance. James II, himself a <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a>, was the first to strive by all the means at his command, to secure for his subjects of all the <a href="../cathen/13674a.htm">denominations</a> "liberty of <a href="../cathen/04268a.htm">conscience</a> for all future time" (Declaration of Indulgence, 1688). His premature <a href="../cathen/09212a.htm">Liberalism</a> was acquiesced in by many of the <a href="../cathen/04049b.htm">clergy</a> and <a href="../cathen/08748a.htm">laity</a> of the Established Church, which alone had nothing to gain by it, but excited the most <a href="../cathen/15446a.htm">violent</a> opposition among the Protestant <a href="../cathen/11095b.htm">Nonconformists</a> who, with the exception of the <a href="../cathen/06304b.htm">Quakers</a>, preferred a continuance of bondage to emancipation if shared with the <a href="../cathen/07149b.htm">hated</a> and dreaded "Papists". So strong was this feeling that it overcame all those principles of patriotism and respect for <a href="../cathen/09053a.htm">law</a> of which the English people are wont to boast, leading them to welcome a foreign usurper and foreign troops for no other reason than to obtain their assistance against their <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> fellow-subjects, in part to do precisely what the latter were <a href="../cathen/15026b.htm">falsely accused</a> of doing in the time of Elizabeth.</p> <p>The Stuart dynasty lost the throne, and their successors were reduced to mere figure-heads. Political freedom had been achieved, but the times were not yet ripe for the wider freedom of <a href="../cathen/04268a.htm">conscience</a>. The <a href="../cathen/11611c.htm">penal laws</a> against <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholics</a> and Dissenters were aggravated instead of abolished. That the <a href="../cathen/13009a.htm">French Revolution of 1789</a> was largely influenced by the English events of the preceding century is beyond <a href="../cathen/05141a.htm">doubt</a>; it is, however, equally certain that its moving spirit was not <a href="../cathen/05445a.htm">English</a> <a href="../cathen/12581a.htm">Puritanism</a>, for the <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">men</a> who set up a declaration of the <a href="../cathen/13055c.htm">Rights</a> of <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">Man</a> against the <a href="../cathen/13055c.htm">Rights</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>, and who enthroned the Goddess of Reason in the Cathedral Church of <a href="../cathen/11480c.htm">Paris</a>, drew their ideals from <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">Pagan</a> <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Rome</a> rather than from Protestant <a href="../cathen/05445a.htm">England</a>.</p> <h3 id="D">Progress in religious toleration</h3> <p>As regards Protestant influence on the general progress of civilization since the origin of Protestantism we must mark off at least two periods: the first from the beginning in 1517 to the end of the <a href="../cathen/14648b.htm">Thirty Years War</a> (1648), the second from 1648 to the present day; the period of youthful expansion, and the period of maturity and decay. But before apportioning its influence on civilization the previous questions should be examined: in how far does <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a> contribute to the amelioration of <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">man</a> — <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">intellectual</a>, moral, material — in this world: for its salutary effects on <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">man's</a> <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> after death cannot be tested, and consequently cannot be used as arguments in a purely scientific disquisition. There were highly-civilized nations in antiquity, <a href="../cathen/02007c.htm">Assyria</a>, <a href="../cathen/05329b.htm">Egypt</a>, <a href="../cathen/06735a.htm">Greece</a>, Rome: and there are now <a href="../cathen/03663b.htm">China</a> and <a href="../cathen/08297a.htm">Japan</a>, whose culture owes nothing to <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a>. When <a href="../cathen/08374c.htm">Christ</a> came to enlighten the world, the light of Roman and Greek culture was shining its brightest, and for at least three centuries longer the new religion added nothing to its lustre. The spirit of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> charity, however, gradually leavened the <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathen</a> mass, softening the hearts of rulers and improving the condition of the ruled, especially of the <a href="../cathen/12327a.htm">poor</a>, the <a href="../cathen/14036a.htm">slave</a>, the <a href="../cathen/12430a.htm">prisoner</a>. The close union of <a href="../cathen/14250c.htm">Church and State</a>, begun with Constantine and continued under his successors, the Roman emperors of East and West, led to much good, but probably to more <a href="../cathen/05649a.htm">evil</a>. The <a href="../cathen/08748a.htm">lay</a> episcopacy which the princes assumed well-nigh reduced the <a href="../cathen/10285c.htm">medieval</a> <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> to a state of abject vassalage, the <a href="../cathen/13675a.htm">secular clergy</a> to <a href="../cathen/07648a.htm">ignorance</a> and worldliness, the peasant to bondage and often to misery.</p> <p>Had it not been for the <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">monasteries</a> the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> of the <a href="../cathen/10285c.htm">Middle Ages</a> would not have saved, as it did, the remnant of Roman and Greek culture which so powerfully helped to civilize Western <a href="../cathen/05607b.htm">Europe</a> after the barbarian invasions. Dotted all over the West, the <a href="../cathen/10487b.htm">monks</a> formed model <a href="../cathen/14074a.htm">societies</a>, well-organized, justly ruled, and prospering by the work of their hands, <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">true</a> ideals of a superior civilization. It was still the ancient Roman civilization, permeated with <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a>, but shackled by the jarring interests of <a href="../cathen/14250c.htm">Church and State</a>. Was <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> <a href="../cathen/05607b.htm">Europe</a>, from a worldly point of view, better off at the beginning of the fifteenth century than <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">pagan</a> <a href="../cathen/05607b.htm">Europe</a> at the beginning of the fourth? For the beginning of our distinctly modern progress we must go back to the <a href="../cathen/12765b.htm">Renaissance</a>, the <a href="../cathen/07538b.htm">Humanistic</a> or classical, i.e. <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">pagan</a> revival, following upon the conquest of Constantinople by the <a href="../cathen/15097a.htm">Turks</a> (1453); upon the discovery of the new Indian trade route round the Cape of Good Hope by the <a href="../cathen/12297a.htm">Portuguese</a>; upon the discovery of America by the <a href="../cathen/14169b.htm">Spaniards</a>, and upon the development of all <a href="../cathen/05607b.htm">European</a> interests, fostered or initiated at the end of the fifteenth century, just before the birth of Protestantism. The opening of the <a href="../cathen/01409c.htm">New World</a> was for <a href="../cathen/05607b.htm">Europe</a> a new creation. <a href="../cathen/10321a.htm">Minds</a> expanded with the vast spaces submitted to them for investigation; the study of <a href="../cathen/02025a.htm">astronomy</a>, at first in the service of navigation, soon reaped its own reward by discoveries in its proper domain, the starry heavens; descriptive geography, botany, anthropology, and kindred <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">sciences</a> demanded study of those who would reap a share in the great harvest East and West. The new impulse and new direction given to commerce changed the political aspect of old <a href="../cathen/05607b.htm">Europe</a>. <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">Men</a> and nations were brought into that close contact of common interests, which is the root of all civilization; <a href="../cathen/15571a.htm">wealth</a> and the printing-press supplied the means for satisfying the awakened craving for <a href="../cathen/03710a.htm">art</a>, <a href="../cathen/13598b.htm">science</a>, <a href="../cathen/08245a.htm">literature</a>, and more refined living. Amid this outburst of new life Protestantism appears on the scene, itself a child of the times. Did it help or hinder the forward movement?</p> <p>The youth of Protestantism was, naturally enough, a period of turmoil, of disturbing confusion in all the spheres of life. No one nowadays can read without a sense of shame and sadness the <a href="../cathen/07365a.htm">history</a> of those years of religious and political strife; of religion everywhere made the handmaid of politics; of wanton destruction of churches and shrines and treasures of <a href="../cathen/05248a.htm">sacred art</a>; of <a href="../cathen/15546c.htm">wars</a> between citizens of the same land conducted with incredible ferocity; of territories laid waste, towns pillaged and levelled to the ground, poor people sent adrift to die of starvation in their barren fields; of commercial prosperity cut down at a stroke; of seats of learning reduced to ranting and loose living; of charity banished from social intercourse to give place to <a href="../cathen/14035b.htm">slander</a> and abuse, of coarseness in speech and manners, of barbarous cruelty on the part of princes, nobles, and judges in their dealings with the "subject" and the <a href="../cathen/12430a.htm">prisoner</a>, in short of the almost sudden drop of whole countries into worse than primitive savagery. "<a href="../cathen/02148b.htm">Greed</a>, <a href="../cathen/14564b.htm">robbery</a>, oppression, rebellion, repression, <a href="../cathen/15546c.htm">wars</a>, devastation, degradation" would be a fitting inscription on the tombstone of early Protestantism.</p> <p>But <em>violenta non durant</em>. Protestantism has now grown into a sedate something, difficult to define. In some form or other it is the official religion in many lands of Teutonic race, it also counts among its adherents an enormous number of independent religious bodies. These Protestant Teutons and semi-Teutons claim to be leaders in modern civilization: to possess the greatest <a href="../cathen/15571a.htm">wealth</a>, the best <a href="../cathen/05295b.htm">education</a>, the purest <a href="../cathen/10559a.htm">morals</a>; in every respect they feel themselves superior to the Latin races who still profess the <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> religion, and they ascribe their superiority to their Protestantism.</p> <p><a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">Man</a> knows himself but imperfectly: the exact state of his health, the <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a> of his <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>, the real motives of his actions, are all veiled in semi-obscurity; of his neighbour he knows even less than of himself, and his generalizations of national character, typified by nicknames, are worthless caricatures. Antipathies rooted in ancient quarrels — political or religious — enter largely into the judgments on nations and <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Churches</a>. Opprobrious, and so far as sense goes obsolete epithets applied in the heat and passion of battle still cling to the ancient foe and create prejudice against him. Conceptions formed three hundred years ago amid a state of things which has long ceased to be, still survive and distort our judgments. How slowly the terms Protestant, Papist, Romanist, <a href="../cathen/11095b.htm">Nonconformist</a>, and others are losing their old unsavoury connotation. Again: Is there any of the greater nations that is purely Protestant? The richest provinces of the <a href="../cathen/06484b.htm">German Empire</a> are <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a>, and contain fully one-third of its entire population. In the <a href="../cathen/15156a.htm">United States of America</a>, according to the latest census, <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholics</a> form the majority of the church-going population in many of the largest cities: <a href="../cathen/13439c.htm">San Francisco</a> (81.1 per cent); <a href="../cathen/11005b.htm">New Orleans</a> (79.7 per cent); <a href="../cathen/11020a.htm">New York</a> (76.9 per cent); St. Louis (69 per cent); <a href="../cathen/02703a.htm">Boston</a> (68.7 per cent); <a href="../cathen/03653a.htm">Chicago</a> (68.2 per cent); <a href="../cathen/11793a.htm">Philadelphia</a> (51.8 per cent).</p> <p><a href="../cathen/05445a.htm">Great Britain</a> and its colonies have a <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> population of over twelve millions. <a href="../cathen/10759a.htm">Holland</a> and <a href="../cathen/14358a.htm">Switzerland</a> have powerful <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> provinces and cantons; only the small Scandinavian kingdoms have succeeded in keeping down the old religion. A further question suggests itself: granting that some states are more prosperous than others, is their greater prosperity due to the particular form of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christianity</a> they profess? The <a href="../cathen/07630a.htm">idea</a> is absurd. For all <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> <a href="../cathen/13674a.htm">denominations</a> have the same <a href="../cathen/10559a.htm">moral</a> code — the <a href="../cathen/04664a.htm">Decalogue</a> — and <a href="../cathen/02408b.htm">believe</a> in the same rewards for the good and punishments for the wicked. We hear it asserted that Protestantism produces self-reliance, whereas <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholicism</a> extinguishes it. Against this may be set the statement that <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholicism</a> produces disciplined order — an equally good commercial asset. The <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a> of the matter is that self-reliance is best fostered by free political institutions and a decentralized government. These existed in <a href="../cathen/05445a.htm">England</a> before the <a href="../cathen/12700b.htm">Reformation</a> and have survived it; they likewise existed in <a href="../cathen/06484b.htm">Germany</a>, but were crushed out by Protestant Cæsaropapism, never to revive with their primitive vigour. <a href="../cathen/10285c.htm">Medieval</a> <a href="../cathen/08208a.htm">Italy</a>, the <a href="../cathen/08208a.htm">Italy</a> of the <a href="../cathen/12765b.htm">Renaissance</a>, enjoyed free municipal government in its many towns and principalities: though the country was <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a>, it brought forth a crop of undisciplined self-reliant <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">men</a>, great in many walks of life, <a href="../cathen/06636b.htm">good</a> and <a href="../cathen/05649a.htm">evil</a>. And looking at <a href="../cathen/07365a.htm">history</a>, we see <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> <a href="../cathen/06166a.htm">France</a> and <a href="../cathen/14169b.htm">Spain</a> attaining the zenith of their national grandeur, whilst <a href="../cathen/06484b.htm">Germany</a> was undermining and disintegrating that Holy Roman Empire vested in the German nation — an empire which was its glory, its strength, the source and mainstay of its culture and prosperity.</p> <p>England's grandeur during the same epoch is due to the same cause as that of <a href="../cathen/14169b.htm">Spain</a>: the impulse given to all national forces by the discovery of the <a href="../cathen/01409c.htm">New World</a>. Both <a href="../cathen/14169b.htm">Spain</a> and <a href="../cathen/05445a.htm">England</a> began by securing religious unity. In <a href="../cathen/14169b.htm">Spain</a> the <a href="../cathen/08026a.htm">Inquisition</a> at a small cost of <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human</a> <a href="../cathen/09238c.htm">life</a> preserved the old <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>; in <a href="../cathen/05445a.htm">England</a> the <a href="../cathen/08004a.htm">infinitely</a> more cruel <a href="../cathen/11611c.htm">penal laws</a> stamped out all opposition to the innovations imported from <a href="../cathen/06484b.htm">Germany</a>. <a href="../cathen/06484b.htm">Germany</a> itself did not recover the prominent position it held in <a href="../cathen/05607b.htm">Europe</a> under the <a href="../cathen/03625a.htm">Emperor Charles V</a> until the constitution of the new empire during the Franco-German War (1871) Since then its advance in every direction, except that of religion, has been such as seriously to threaten the commercial and maritime supremacy of <a href="../cathen/05445a.htm">England</a>. The <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truth</a> of the whole matter is this: <a href="../cathen/14763a.htm">religious toleration</a> has been placed on the statute books of modern nations; the <a href="../cathen/02137c.htm">civil power</a> has severed itself from the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">ecclesiastical</a>; the governing classes have grown alarmingly <a href="../cathen/07759a.htm">indifferent</a> to things spiritual; the <a href="../cathen/05295b.htm">educated</a> classes are largely <a href="../cathen/12652a.htm">Rationalistic</a>; the <a href="../cathen/08719a.htm">working</a> classes are widely infected with anti-religious <a href="../cathen/14062a.htm">socialism</a>; a prolific press daily and periodically preaches the gospel of <a href="../cathen/10713a.htm">Naturalism</a> overtly or covertly to countless eager readers; in many lands <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">Christian teaching</a> is banished from the public <a href="../cathen/13554b.htm">schools</a>; and <a href="../cathen/13001a.htm">revealed</a> <a href="../cathen/12738a.htm">religion</a> is fast losing that power of fashioning politics, culture, home life, and personal character which it used to exercise for the benefit of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> states. Amid this almost general flight from <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a> to the creature, <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholicism</a> alone makes a stand: its <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">teaching</a> is intact, its <a href="../cathen/05030a.htm">discipline</a> stronger than ever, its confidence in final victory is unshaken.</p> <h3 id="E">The test of vitality</h3> <p>A better standard for comparison than the glamour of worldly progress, at best an accidental result of a religious system, is the power of self-preservation and propagation, i.e. vital energy. What are the facts? "The anti-Protestant movement in the <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Roman</a> Church" says a Protestant writer, "which is generally called the <a href="../cathen/04437a.htm">Counter-Reformation</a>, is really at least as remarkable as the <a href="../cathen/12700b.htm">Reformation</a> itself. Probably it would be no exaggeration to call it the most remarkable single episode that has ever occurred in the <a href="../cathen/07365a.htm">history</a> of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Christian Church</a>. Its immediate success was greater than that of the Protestant movement, and its permanent results are fully as large at the present day. It called forth a burst of missionary enthusiasm such as has not been seen since the first day of Pentecost. So far as organization is concerned, there can be no question that the mantle of the <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">men</a> who made the Roman Empire has fallen upon the <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Roman</a> Church; and it has never given more striking <a href="../cathen/12454c.htm">proof</a> of its vitality and power than it did at this time, immediately after a large portion of <a href="../cathen/05607b.htm">Europe</a> had been torn from its grasp. Printing-presses poured forth literature not only to meet the controversial needs of the moment but also admirable editions of the early Fathers to whom the Reformed Churches appealed — sometimes with more confidence than <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>. Armies of devoted missionaries were scientifically marshalled. Regions of <a href="../cathen/05607b.htm">Europe</a> which had seemed to be lost for ever [for example, the southern portion of <a href="../cathen/06484b.htm">Germany</a> and parts of <a href="../cathen/02121b.htm">Austria-Hungary</a>] were recovered to the Papacy, and the claims of the <a href="../cathen/15403b.htm">Vicar of Christ</a> were carried far and wide through countries where they had never been heard before" (R.H. Malden, classical lecturer, Selwyn College, Cambridge, in "Foreign Missions", London, 1910, 119-20).</p> <p>Dr. G. Warneck, a protagonist of the Evangelical Alliance in <a href="../cathen/06484b.htm">Germany</a>, thus describes the result of the <em><a href="../cathen/08703b.htm">Kulturkampf</a>:</em> "The <a href="../cathen/08703b.htm">Kulturkampf</a> (i.e. struggle for superiority of Protestantism against <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholicism</a> in <a href="../cathen/12519c.htm">Prussia</a>), which was inspired by political, national, and liberal-religious motives, ended with a complete victory for <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Rome</a>. When it began, a few <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">men</a>, who <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knew</a> <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Rome</a> and the weapons used against her, foretold with <a href="../cathen/03539b.htm">certainty</a> that a contest with Romanism on such lines would of necessity end in defeat for the State and in an increase of power for Romanism. . . . The enemy whom we met in battle has brilliantly conquered us, though we had all the arms <a href="../cathen/02137c.htm">civil power</a> can supply. <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">True</a>, the victory is partly owing to the ability of the leaders of the <a href="../cathen/16020b.htm">Centre party</a>, but it is truer still that the weapons used on our side were blunted tools, unfit for doing serious harm. The <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Roman</a> Church is indeed, like the State, a political power, worldly to the core, but after all she is a <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a>, and therefore disposes of religious powers which she invariably brings into action when contending with <a href="../cathen/02137c.htm">civil powers</a> for Supremacy. The State has no equivalent power to oppose. You cannot hit a spirit, not even the <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Roman</a> spirit . . ." (Der evangelische Bund und seine Gegner", 13-14). The anti-religious Government of <a href="../cathen/06166a.htm">France</a> is actually renewing the <em><a href="../cathen/08703b.htm">Kulturkampf</a>;</em> but no more than its German models does it succeed in "hitting the <a href="../cathen/13164a.htm">Roman</a> spirit". Endowments, <a href="../cathen/03041a.htm">churches</a>, <a href="../cathen/13554b.htm">schools</a>, <a href="../cathen/04340c.htm">convents</a> have been confiscated, yet the spirit lives.</p> <p>The other mark of <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> vitality — the power of propagation — is evident in missionary work. Long before the birth of Protestantism, <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> missionaries had <a href="../cathen/04347a.htm">converted</a> <a href="../cathen/05607b.htm">Europe</a> and carried the Faith as far as <a href="../cathen/03663b.htm">China</a>. After the <a href="../cathen/12700b.htm">Reformation</a> they reconquered for the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> the Rhinelands, <a href="../cathen/02353c.htm">Bavaria</a>, <a href="../cathen/02121b.htm">Austria</a>, part of <a href="../cathen/07547a.htm">Hungary</a>, and <a href="../cathen/12181a.htm">Poland</a>; they established flourishing <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christian</a> communities all over North and South America and in the <a href="../cathen/12297a.htm">Portuguese</a> colonies, wherever, in short, <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> powers allowed them free play. For nearly three hundred years Protestants were too intent on self-preservation to think of foreign missionary work. At the present day, however, they develop great activity in all <a href="../cathen/11388a.htm">heathen</a> countries, and not without a fair success. Malden, in the work quoted above, compares <a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholic</a> with Protestant methods and results: although his sympathy is naturally with his own, his <a href="../cathen/01656b.htm">approbation</a> is all for the other side.</p> <h2 id="section11">Conclusion</h2> <p><a href="../cathen/03449a.htm">Catholicism</a> numbers some 270 millions of adherents, all professing the same Faith, using the same <a href="../cathen/13295a.htm">sacraments</a>, living under the same <a href="../cathen/05030a.htm">discipline</a>; Protestantism claims roundly 100 millions of <a href="../cathen/03712a.htm">Christians</a>, products of the Gospel and the fancies of a hundred reformers, people constantly bewailing their "unhappy divisions" and vainly crying for a union which is only possible under that very <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">central authority</a>, protestation against which is their only common denominator.</p> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-bottom' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <div class="cenotes"><h2>Sources</h2><p class="cenotes">For controversial matter see any Catholic or Protestant textbooks. The Catholic standard work is BELLARMINE, <em>Disputations de Controversiis Christianoe fidei</em> etc. (4 vols., Rome, 1832-8); on the Protestant side: GERHARD, <em>Loci Theologici</em>, etc. (9 vols., Berlin, 1863-75). For the historical, political, and social history of Protestantism the best works are: DÖLLINGER, <em>Die Reformation</em> (3 VOLS., Ratisbon, 1843-51); <em>The Church and the Churches</em>, tr. MACCABE (1862); JANSSEN, <em>Hist. of the German People at the close of the Middle Ages</em>, tr. CHRISTIE (London, 1896-1910); PASTOR, <em>Hist. of the Popes from the close of the Middle Ages</em>, tr. ANTROBUS (London, 1891-1910); BALMES, <em>Protestantism and Catholicity in their effects on the civilization of Europe</em>, tr. HANFORD AND KERSHAW (1849); BAUDRILLART, <em>The Catholic Church, the Renaissance and Protestantism</em>, tr. GIBBS (London, 1908), these are illuminating lectures given at the Institut Catholique of Paris by its rector. On the Protestant side may be recommended the voluminous writings of CREIGHTON and GARDINER, both fair-minded.</p></div> <div class="pub"><h2>About this page</h2><p id="apa"><strong>APA citation.</strong> <span id="apaauthor">Wilhelm, J.</span> <span id="apayear">(1911).</span> <span id="apaarticle">Protestantism.</span> In <span id="apawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="apapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company.</span> <span id="apaurl">http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12495a.htm</span></p><p id="mla"><strong>MLA citation.</strong> <span id="mlaauthor">Wilhelm, Joseph.</span> <span id="mlaarticle">"Protestantism."</span> <span id="mlawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="mlavolume">Vol. 12.</span> <span id="mlapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company,</span> <span id="mlayear">1911.</span> <span id="mlaurl"><http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12495a.htm>.</span></p><p id="transcription"><strong>Transcription.</strong> <span id="transcriber">This article was transcribed for New Advent by Douglas J. Potter.</span> <span id="dedication">Dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ.</span></p><p id="approbation"><strong>Ecclesiastical approbation.</strong> <span id="nihil"><em>Nihil Obstat.</em> June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor.</span> <span id="imprimatur"><em>Imprimatur.</em> +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.</span></p><p id="contactus"><strong>Contact information.</strong> The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is webmaster <em>at</em> newadvent.org. Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.</p></div> </div> <div id="ogdenville"><table summary="Bottom bar" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"><center><strong>Copyright © 2023 by <a href="../utility/contactus.htm">New Advent LLC</a>. 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