Chapter III. Formalism an old enemy of Christianity. (2 Thess. ii. 7.)

PAPISTS—we shall seldom honor them with the name of Catholics – greatly pride themselves in the antiquity of their organization. They boastingly ask Protestants, “Where was your so-called Church three centuries ago?” With a frequency and an eagerness which painfully remind one of the struggles of a drowning man, they quote, in proof of Rome’s greatness and especially of her perpetuity, a passage from Lord Macaulay’s “Review of Ranke’s History of the Popes:”

“No other institution (save the Catholic Church) is left standing which carries the mind back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and when camelopards and tigers bounded in the Flavian amphitheatre. The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday compared with the line of the supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace back in an unbroken series from the Pope who crowned Napoleon in the nineteenth century to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth ; and far beyond the time of Pepin the august dynasty extends, till it is lost in the twilight of fable. . . . Nor do we see any sign which indicates that the term of her long: dominion is approaching. She saw the commencement of all the governments and all the ecclesiastical establishments that now exist in the world; and we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see the end of them all. She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the Frank had passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished in Antioch, when idols were still worshipped in the temple of Mecca. And she may still exist in undiminished vigor when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul’s.”

By the music of this inflated eloquence they have beat many an inglorious retreat. Nay, it has even done service in leading an attack. The Rev. James Kent Stone, a recent pervert to Popery, in his “Invitation Heeded,” hurls it against the luckless head of defeated Protestantism. But how much argument is there in it? The devil is as old as the Romish Church, and a little older, and probably has quite as long a lease on life; is he any better for that? If, however, an answer is necessary, or rather possible—bombast is generally unanswerable—it may be found in an appeal from the youthful, “vealy” (immature) reviewer, to the mature, accurate, learned and elegant historian; from Macaulay, the youth giving promise of future greatness, to Macaulay, the intellectual giant. In his “History of England,” with a sword that cuts the keener for its polished beauty, he lays bare the treacherous heart, pierces the arrogant assumptions, unveils the concealed wickedness, and utterly demolishes many of the absurd claims of the Papacy. One quotation must suffice. This, chosen because of its bearing on our general subject, the hostility of Popery to modern civilization, shall be taken from Vol. I. chap. i. page 37:

“During the last three centuries, to stunt the growth of the human mind has been her (the Church of Rome’s) chief object. Throughout Christendom, whatever advance has been made in knowledge, in freedom, in wealth, and in the arts of life, has been made in spite of her, and has everywhere been in inverse proportion to her power. The loveliest and most fertile provinces of Europe have, under her rule, been sunk in poverty, in political servitude, and in intellectual torpor; while Protestant countries, once proverbial for sterility and barbarism, have been turned, by skill and industry, into gardens, and can boast of a long list of heroes and statesmen, philosophers and poets. Whoever, knowing what Italy and Scotland naturally are, and what, four hundred years ago, they actually were, shall now compare the country round Rome with the country round Edinburgh, will be able to form some judgment as to the tendency of Papal domination. The descent of Spain, once the first among monarchies, to the lowest depths of degradation, the elevation of Holland, in spite of many disadvantages, to a position such as no commonwealth so small has ever reached, teach the same lesson.”

If by Rome’s claim to antiquity is meant that her doctrines antedate those of Protestantism, few things are more untrue. The cardinal beliefs of the Reformed Churches are as old as the Gospel, nay, as the giving of the law from Mount Sinai, nay, as the announcement of salvation made to Eve in Eden. These doctrines,— that the one living and true God is the only legitimate object of divine worship; that Christ is the only Saviour, a perfect sacrifice; that his kingdom is not of this world, but an invisible, spiritual kingdom, composed of the faithful and their infant children ; that the condition of union with his spouse, the Church, is regeneration of heart wrought by God’s spirit; that the triune God alone can pardon sin; that he and he exclusively is the Lord of the conscience,— are doctrines not only as old as the Reformation, but as old as the inspired Word of God, and as imperishable as the Church itself. But the dogmas of Romanism are a mere novelty in the religious world. Thus the primacy of Peter, a doctrine now considered vital to the system, is of comparatively recent origin. Admitting that Peter was in Rome, we may safely challenge the proof that he was universal bishop. And his successors? They were persons so obscure that even Papal infallibility cannot agree upon their names. Though Vicars of Christ, supreme pontiffs, they are never even alluded to by the Apostle John, Peter’s survivor for at least forty years. Undutiful son, write so much Scripture, and make no mention of Holy Father! Strange indeed! Notwithstanding Pius IX., in his Invitation “To all Protestants and other Non-Catholics,” declares, “No one can deny or doubt that Jesus Christ himself… . . built his only Church in this world on Peter; that is to say, the Church, One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic,” we have the heretical hardihood to affirm that the primacy of Peter was entirely unknown in the early ages of the Church. It was devised in the latter part of the sixth century—a means to the accomplishment of an end—to bolster up the assumptions of Rome’s proud bishops. So likewise the supremacy of the Pope (never even claimed till AD 590) was resisted by Councils, denounced by many of the ablest of the fathers, and condemned by an infallible Pope and canonized saint, Gregory. (See next Chapter.) The invocation of the dead, now so common with Romanists, did not even begin to manifest itself till the third century. The use of masses, solemnly condemned in the Council of Constantinople, AD 700, and again in the seventh Greek Council, 754, was not established till the ninth century. The doctrine of purgatory—the hen that lays the golden egg—was not an essential part of Popery till the Council of Florence, A. p. 1430. The doctrine of celibacy— that mark of the great apostasy, “forbidding to marry,” (1 Tim. iv. 3,) is only about 780 years old. For nearly eleven centuries every priest might have a wife, and live a life free from scandal. Now they are “Fathers” without wives. Transubstantiation—Papal cannibalism —did not originate till about the middle of the fifth century, and was severely denounced by some fifteen or twenty of Rome’s most honored fathers. Not till A.D. 1215, in the fourth Lateran, Council, was it exalted into a dogma. So also the insufficiency of the Bible as a rule of faith and practice is an assertion frequently and pointedly condemned by at least a dozen of the fathers, Rome’s invariable resort. The adoration of relics—that wondrous promoter of traffic in dry bones —originated about the same time as the worship of saints and martyrs. The withholding of the cup from the laity was pronounced by Pope Gelasius (a. p. 492) to be an “impious sacrilege.” And to our own times was left the honor—if honor it be to have outstripped the superstition of the dark ages—of promulgating the dogma of the “Immaculate conception of the Virgin,” “ Mother of God,” “ Mirror of Justice,” “ Refuge of Sinners,” and “Gate of Heaven.” In fact, not till the present year was the system rendered complete, symmetrical, perfect. It needed, like Buddhism, its elder sister, the solemn announcement of the infallibility of the supreme pontiff. This, after six months’ angry discussion, has been ostentatiously presented to the world as the infallible dogma of five hundred fallible bishops. (How many fallibles may be necessary to make an infallible. possibly Pio Nono (Pope Pius IX) can now tell.) Thus we can conclusively show that the distinctive doctrines and rites of Romanism are mere novelties, less ancient than the doctrines and practices of Protestantism.

If by her claim to antiquity, however, is meant that the unhallowed love of forms is as old as the Gospel, we do not deny it. Even in the Apostle’s time, depraved man was beginning to corrupt the pure religion of Jesus. “The mystery of iniquity,” said Paul, “doth already work, only he who now letteth (hindereth) will let, until he be taken out of the way.” As under the tuition of Satan, the deceitful heart developed every system of false religion by which the world had been deluded, so by cunningly employing the truth revealed by Christ, it was commencing to weave a new system of superstition as much like to Paganism, as two garments made from the same material are like to each other. Originating in the preference of the forms of devotion to the spirit—a tendency dating backward to the Fall—this mystery of iniquity, after centuries of gradual development, culminated in Romanism, Satan’s last agency for recruiting the armies doing battle with the truth. Though last, its efficiency is by no means least, since the unrenewed naturally turn from the salvation of the Lord to that which, being of their own devising, is more congenial to fallen human nature, easier of attainment, and more flattering to vanity.

In one sense, therefore, we are ready to concede that Popery’s claim to antiquity is well founded. Romanism, as ritualism, has always existed, not only in the Pagan world—Paganism is unbaptized Popery—but also in connection with the religion revealed from heaven, and probably will continue to the end of time, and be destroyed only by the brightness of the Saviour’s coming. It originated in Eden; at once becoming more pleasing to sensuous man than the worship of God in spirit and in truth. Cain—preferring self-chosen rites to those enjoined by express divine command, and destitute of the spiritual vision of Christ as the sin-atoning Lamb—was a type of Pagan, Jew, Papist, all ritualists. And what was the worship of the wicked antediluvians but one of rites? What was Judaism itself, during almost the entire history of the Jewish nation, but a religion of ceremonies? Its ritual service, though intended and well adapted to keep the vital truths of redemption prominently before the mind, was allowed by many, may we not say by most, to assume such an importance as to overshadow the tree of righteousness. Hence, failing to apprehend its true spirit, they crucified him whom the types distinctly prefigured. Coming as “a preacher of righteousness,” and not to establish a kingdom in which the forms of devotion should prevail without piety in the heart, he was put to death, and that by those whose mission it was to announce him as the world’s spiritual deliverer.

So likewise Phariseeism, loaded with traditions and meaningless moral distinctions, was only Popery under another name. Hostile, then, as ever to the true Church, it was severely denounced by Christ. In his Sermon on the Mount, he laid the axe at the root of the evil, declaring that the righteousness which God accepts is not mere compliance with certain outward requirements of the law and the observance of traditional precepts, but piety in the heart. All, therefore, whether Pharisees or Romanists, who so love the forms of worship and exalt the “traditions of the fathers” as to make “the word of God of none effect,” are condemned in terms too explicit to be misunderstood.

Even in the Church of Christ, where the very first requirement is spirituality, this tendency to ritualism manifested itself. As Christianity was the outgrowth of Judaism, some were strongly disposed to place reliance in forms. “Certain men who came down from Judea taught the people, except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.” Evidently some were trusting to the observance of a profitless rite. The mystery was working. The germ of Popery was developing. For the purpose of crushing this, a council, summoned from the entire Church, consisting of apostles and elders (Peter, it would seem, was not Pope), assembled in Jerusalem. After much discussion, in which Paul and Barnabas and James, as well as Peter. engaged, “the apostles and elders and brethren” (evidently there was as yet no spiritual sovereign) sent letters “unto the brethren of the Gentiles,” affirming, “It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than necessary things.” “Believing that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved,” they condemned dependence on circumcision, on any and every outward form, recommending Christians to the merit of Christ for redemption. Only necessary things, the essentials of religion, were enjoined. Thus the primitive Church, in council assembled, not only furnished evidence of the early working of this “mystery of iniquity,” and a refutation of the claim of supremacy for Peter, but in reality most solemnly and emphatically condemned the spirit of Popery, the ever existing and always pernicious tendency to rely upon the outward rites of religion.

Few unbiased readers will hesitate in conceding that Paul’s Epistles, and especially the one to the Galatians, were written with the design of denouncing the tendency to ritualism. He endeavors to refute the errors which were beginning to pervert the Gospel. He directs believers to Christ, and to Christ alone. He condemns dependence on forms—on anything save the blood of Jesus. In holy earnestness he exclaims, “Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other Gospel unto you than that we have preached, let him be accursed.” Full well did the Apostle discern the tendency of the human heart to become enamored with forms, and in the observance of these, vainly, and perhaps unconsciously, fancy it is working out its own salvation, content without the sense of forgiveness from Christ, or the spirit of godliness in the soul. Therefore, of this “mystery of iniquity” he affirms, “it doth already work.”

But although thus sternly reproved, in the lapse of time, from depraved human nature, it again sprang up, and having established itself, has tyrannized over the souls of men for nearly thirteen centuries. Hence, in one sense, we are ready to admit the claims of the Papists that theirs is the ancient Church. The principles upon which they found their system are as old as the Fall, and as enduring as the human race; but so far from receiving any countenance from Christ and his apostles, they were severely denounced by them; but arising out of corrupt human nature, however frequently refuted, and however severely condemned, they are sure to reappear, and almost certain to find stanch advocates. When these principles, perceptible only in germ in the Apostles’ time, had gained the ascendancy, Antichrist had arisen; the power and the spirit of godliness were supplanted by dead forms, “the man of sin,” “the son of perdition,” “the mystery of iniquity,” “that Wicked,” was revealed.

It is scarcely necessary for us to remind the reflecting reader that Romanism, as ritualism, as cold and heartless formalism, not only has ever shown itself the enemy of a pure, unfettered Gospel, but the endeared associate of despotism. If not the foe, it certainly has not been the friend of free institutions. Its pomp and glitter, its extravagance and meaningless pageantry, ill comport with the simplicity, economy, and rugged intelligence of Republicanism. Ritualism, Popery, despotism; intelligence, Protestantism, civil liberty, are inseparable friends.

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