MY DEAR S—,
I fear I have failed to make my meaning clear. I have no grudge against any Roman Catholic. It is the religious system of Popery that I deplore. You are a lawyer and should see the force of my arguments. Here are a few of them.
We Christians found our whole faith upon the Bible which we believe to be the word of God. The position of a man professing to be a Christian and denying the Bible is therefore incongruous and utterly untenable. We have nothing but the Bible to show us the mind and purposes of God. It is only in the Bible that I can read of the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth, who professed to be the Christ of God. Nowhere but in the Bible do I learn of the foundation of the Christian Church or of its God-ordained practices. In Romanism I find a vast religious system professing the name of Christ, but not a single one of its ceremonial or sacramental usages, which are warp and woof of its fabric, is to be found in the Bible. Most of them are pagan rites, with a good deal of Judaism as well, revivified and labeled with the name of Christ. The office of Pontifex Maximus, to begin at the top, is absolutely such; pagan, both in title and in office. The whole of the hierarchy follows with all its branches and its emanations.
The Council of Trent practically hurls its curse at everybody who accepts what the Bible teaches. Were it in the power of Rome to-day to re-establish the Inquisition, we should be haled to-morrow
"To the thumbscrew and the stake
For the glory of the Lord.”
Only four years ago the Bishop of Pernambuco publicly burnt a lot of Bibles in the square that I had traversed a brief year or two previously; and were it not for public opinion, for the race of free thinkers which Rome has bred, and other such hindrances, the priests would act similarly all the wide world over. They condemn the Bible as an evil and dangerous book, and the majority of them know nothing of its sacred contents. Do you remember the Spanish priest whom George Borrow met? This worthy quoted Virgil volubly, fully believing it to be the word of God.
I have no quarrel with the Roman Catholic. It is with the "ism" that I am at daggers drawn. If I believe the Bible to be the word of God and essential to salvation, am I. to hear the priest denouncing it as an evil and dangerous book without a protest? If I believe that Jesus Christ is the Saviour of every sinner, am I to hear men being taught that the "church," and the church alone, can save them, without uttering a word of rebuke?
I believe that those old-time dignitaries who stigmatized the mass as an abominable heresy and an impious blasphemy were absolutely right, but the spirit of to-day says, "Let pass. Let men believe what they like; what does it matter?" Am I to neglect the lessons of history, and to let England gradually succumb to the influence of Rome without a murmur? I own that my protest, my rebuke, my murmur, do but proceed from one wretched feeble unit; but then England is made up of units, and if all those who believe in Christ, as I believe in Him, were to raise their simultaneous cry and use their shoulder together as one man, the victory of Rome would be less simply won. I love and honor no one more than my Roman Catholic grandmother, but I do not love the system which has robbed her of her reason in religious things, and made her accept unconditionally the unreason of Holy Mother Church.
Do you understand me now? I am jealous of Christ. The Roman Catholic Church places its priesthood upon an equal footing with Himself.
I am jealous of His heavenly glory. The Roman Catholic Church has given to a weak and erring woman an even higher place.
I am jealous of the Bible. Roman Catholicism has substituted the teaching of an "infallible" church!
I am jealous of my simple trust in His finished work of Calvary. The Roman Catholic Church has supplanted it by sacramental observances, by which its coffers are filled and without which, it asserts, is no salvation.
Very best wishes,
Yours always,
L. L.