IT is very important to observe that Romanism does take infidel ground, and to press this on their consciences: I have often done so in Ireland. God is competent to make men responsible by speaking Himself. This is a most important proposition; and this is the one thing they have to defend (by His own testimony, that is). In their arguments there is a grand primary lie, namely, that the means of communicating Christ's religion is the same thing as the rule of faith. This is a fundamental fallacy of Milner's “End of Controversy.” A mother, a child, may be the means of communicating Christ's religion; but they are not a rule of faith. These two things may be united, but they are in no way the same thing. (I suppose the book you have, however, is Wiseman's).
Now I would take the bull by the horns and say that there is no living saving faith whatever, but that which is wrought by the operation of the word of God, received on His direct authority, without any other warrant. If it be received on the authority of the church, it is not believing God. The word of God proves itself to the conscience, and puts man by itself under the responsibility of crediting it; because God cannot speak without man's being bound to know and hear Him, for none spake like Him. He may in grace use proofs and confirmations and witnesses; but man is bound to hear Him: God will prove this in the day of judgment. Nay, the very heathen are without excuse on much lower ground. The reason, too, is plain practically. The word of God judges, and is not judged: man “is convinced of all, he is judged of all “; and, the secrets of his heart being revealed, he falls down and confesses “that God is in you of a truth.” This is not authority, but it is the only saving thing. A man does not want authority to know that a two-edged sword is sharp. A faith founded on miracles, though God vouchsafed this confirmation, is no saving faith at all: Jesus did not commit Himself to it (John ii.). He knew what was in man. But then in the corruption of the church and its prevalent power, it may be a reason why none but those who receive the love of the truth should escape. For this power of the word by the Spirit, acting on man, not judged by him, supposes the unbeliever: all else is no living faith. But the church has the Spirit and the word, and the spiritual man judges all things.
Hence then I first take the ground, that the word of God received on His direct authority is a rejection of God's testimony. If I receive an account of another because you put your name to it, it is because I do not believe the person who gives the account. God may providentially make it to be received where this genuine saving faith is not; but then it is not saving. To be saving it must be believing God. “He that hath received His testimony hath set to his seal that God is true “; he that demands the church's authority to receive it has not. God may have used all manner of means of preserving and even authenticating the testimony; and so He has in many as we might expect; and I believe the scriptures were committed to the church to keep—not to authorize but to keep; as I keep a document safe, I give it no authority: it has its own, but I keep it safe.
Now God, I believe, has providentially done this. But then the Roman body has decidedly failed in it; because at the Council of Trent, which is with them of divine authority, it has declared that to be scripture which declares itself not to be so. That is, for example, the second book of Maccabees, which concludes by saying, If I have done well, it is as befits the subject; if ill, it is according to my ability. Now it is profane to suppose that this is the Holy Ghost's inditing. The Prologus Galeatus of Jerome indeed, generally prefixed to the Vulgate, declares that the Apocryphal books are not scripture. Many other passages from the Apocrypha could be adduced (such as that the offerings for the dead were for those dead in mortal sins; and that there are three contrary accounts of the death of Antiochus); but I prefer the fact as above that one book of Maccabees declares it is not scripture. Moreover, it is well known that Sixtus V, acting under the authority of the Council of Trent, promulgated as the only authentic word of God an edition of the Vulgate, which was suppressed, because his successor Clement altered it in 2,000 places. Five copies only are in existence; Clement's bears in appearance its name. Romanism has been in no sense, what the church ought to be, a faithful keeper of the “oracles of God” committed to us.
But after all, clever as Dr. Wiseman is, it is a vicious circle he is in. He takes the scripture as an authentic book. This itself then he supposes may be done. But if authentic, in the first place, it is clearly inspired as anyone who reads it may see; that is, it gives us (to say the very least, for I think it goes farther) an authentic account of the actual authoritative teaching of Paul, Peter, James, John, Jude, and of the Lord Himself. If this be so, I have no need of the church to receive its doctrine as divine. The authentic record of Christ's words and of the apostles' teaching gives me a divine instruction directly, which no reference to a derivative authority can set aside; because the body which could set aside or call in question the authority from which it derives, is not derivative from it at all. If it be then authentic, I have the original divine instructions which founded, formed, and guided the church itself at first. If it be not authentic, then to find that the church was founded proves nothing; for if not authentic, I do not know it is true. If I am to receive the church from it, I certainly can receive Christ's and all the apostles' words from it directly. But I may go farther: if it be not inspired as well as authentic, and if I do not know it to be so, I have no inspired warrant, that is, no divine warrant, for hearing the church at all. So that on this ground you cannot set up the authority of the church without setting up previously the authority of scripture itself. The authenticity proves inspiration, or it gives no inspired authority for the church; and I hear all Christ's and the apostle's inspired words as well as those as to the church. For if I receive something a person says and not the rest, I receive none of it on his authority.
But when I examine the point farther, I find the authority of this authentic book showing one plainly a church indeed established, that is, an assembly; but quite the contrary to the conclusion drawn from it. I find the test of being of God as to doctrine to be hearing the apostles themselves: “he that is of God heareth us.” And I have their authentic words in this book. I am not of God if I do not hear them, themselves, as the guard against error. When I turn to hearing the church, I find not a word about doctrine at all, but a case of discipline (any rules of which, according to Romanist doctrine, are not binding unless where received, though decreed by a Council, though they allege decrees on faith are. The discipline of the Council of Trent was not everywhere received). It is a question of wrong done, carried to two or three, and at last before the assembly; and if the wronging party will not mind the whole body, he may be avoided by the offended one as a heathen. Whereas I find the scriptures referred to as the security in perilous times, and the certainty of having received the doctrine from the apostles personally, “knowing of whom.” I find the Lord, Whose words all of us would bow to as divine, yet preferring, as the medium of communication, the written word: “If they believe not his writings, how shall they believe My words?” “They have Moses and the prophets: let them hear them.”
Now if we separate the rule of faith from the means of communicating Christ's religion (which last all admit may he, and is now, fallible—consequently the individual priest), where is their accessible rule? Is it in the Acts of 19 [now 21] Councils? (And which are they? For you are aware that Romanists are not agreed which they are)—acts in Latin moreover, or in Greek? Where is this accessible rule of faith? And now further, Romanists are not agreed what the rule is. Ultramontanes hold the Pope infallible; Cismontanes hold he is not. Many, as the Councils of Constance and Basle hold that they had the authority to act independent of and superior to the Pope. At the time of the former there were two popes. The Council deposed them, and chose another, Martin V., who dissolved the Council. Is the Council of Constance a general Council? If so, it has given an authority in matters of faith quite different from the papal advocates; it acted on it too and deposed the popes; and yet if it had not this authority, the whole succession of the popedom is founded on a schismatical act. However that may be, the authority on matters of faith Romanists are not agreed on. Not only so, but these Councils have decreed things against the Pope's authority, and he against theirs. The Acts at Basle the Pope declared void after the departure of his legate, having transferred the Council elsewhere, though only a part left. So, further, the Council of Chalcedon declared the equality of the Sees of Constantinople and Rome: this Pope Leo rejected.
If a Roman Catholic says, I am not learned enough for all this, then I reply, Where is the simplicity and accessibleness of their rule of faith? For this is it. If you say, I trust my priest, then you are on confessedly fallible ground. I had much rather trust, with God's help by the Spirit, the writings of Paul and Peter and John, &c. addressed to all saints—expressly so addressed. How fallible that is, you may suppose when I tell you that, in the four standard catechisms published by the authority of different Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland, there are not the same lists of seven deadly sins. But this is by the bye.
But is there not a fearfully upsetting thing, that the moment I do turn to the Bible—take the Romanist translation—I find it sets aside the cardinal points of Romanism? For instance, the Mass: I read, there is no more oblation for sin. I am told by the highest authority of the Romish system, that the Mass is a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the living and the dead. Yet take away this, and all Romanism falls Again, there is one Mediator. Now the Romish system makes many, and in fact more referred to than Christ is. And it is in vain to say that it is only as praying. Their merits are positively acted on in the Missal; and the Virgin Mary is called on to save us now and at the hour of death. Nay, so far is this carried, that the Confiteor, on which absolution is received, leaves out Christ altogether.
The inadequacy of scripture to give unity is a mere claptrap. Has Rome produced it? Clearly not, unless by blood. Look at it from without. Authority, they say, was in the church from the beginning; if not, it is new and good for nothing. Well, did it preserve unity? Witness the Greeks, Nestorians, Jacobites; earlier, the Novatian system; Paulicians; Protestants: half professing Christendom at this moment is outside their unity. But their authority being alleged to be the original effectual thing, it is clear that it has failed to preserve unity. They tried by fire and blood when Protestantism arose, but in half Europe in vain. Present facts then prove its inadequacy to this end. To say that it promotes unity among those subject to it is merely what the smallest sect in Christendom would say too. I remember a poor Romanist telling us nine-and-thirty religions arose out of the Bible. I told him, I suppose his did, or it was good for nothing; and thus there were forty. And really the argument is worth no more. Nothing can produce unity but the teaching and power of the Spirit of God.