ABSTRACT OF ROMAN CATHOLIC DOCTRINES.

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unwritten traditions of the "Holy Catholic Church," as having been handed down to it from Christ, are to be received with the same veneration as the Holy Scriptures; of which last the Vulgate is the only authorized translation.* Tradition is to be received because the Holy Ghost dwells perpetually in the Church; the Vulgate, because the Church of Rome, which adopts it, has been kept free from all errors by the special grace of God. The seven sacraments † are divinely ordained ; they are referred to Christ, since the institutes of the Church of Christ are communicated to that Church not by Scripture alone, but by tradition. Justification is not to be obtained by faith alone. The sinner is justified (so the Council of Trent voted), "through the merit of the most sacred passion and by the power of the Holy Ghost. While man observes the commands of God and the Church, by the help of faith and through good works, he grows in righteousness and is justified more and more." Justification, however, cannot dispense with the sacraments, by which it either begins, or when begun is continued, or when lost is regained.|| All religious instruction, all interpretation of Scripture, must be given by ecclesiastical authority alone. The visible Church is also the true

T

outbreak of the Reformation. These documents (Canones et Decreta Concilii Tridentini, Roma, 1564) were passed chiefly during Sessions iv. to vii., xiii., xiv., and xxi. to xxv. They will be found in the Histo ria del Concilio Tridentino, by SARPI, 1629. The Professio Fidei Tridentina, drawn up (A.D. 1564) by order of Pope Pius IV., embodies them. It was subscribed by all candidates, may be regarded as the Confession of Faith of the Roman Church, and as having settled, for Roman Catholicism as against the Protestant heresy, all the chief points of doctrine. In Sarpi's work (at page 241 and elsewhere) will be found discussions on these matters.

* Concil. Trident, Sessio IV.

Namely: 1. Baptism; 2. Confirmation; 3. The Eucharist; 4. Penance; 5. Orders; 6. Marriage; 7. Extreme Unction. Luther and Melanc thon were inclined to add to the two usual Protestant sacraments (ta wit, Baptism and the Lord's Supper) a third, that of Penance.

SARPI: Sessio VI., c. VII., § 10.

Sessio VII. T Sessio IV.

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SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH RESTRICTED.

Church, and no religious existence can be recognized out of her pale.*

With these doctrines was included the seclusion of the Bible even in its Latin version, much more in the vernacular, from perusal by any one not an ecclesiastic.†

Then, in later documents, we find the ideas of the Roman Church, touching the relations between science and religion, and the definition of the Papal claim to infallibility in religious teachings. Scientific research must not, on pain of anathema, be prosecuted in a spirit of freedom, if, in its progress, science should assert what contravenes the doctrines of the Church.† And forasmuch as "this See of St. Peter ever remains free from all error," when its sovereign head, the Pope, speaking "in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority," defines any "doctrine of faith or morals, to be held by the universal Church," he is infallible; and therefore" such definitions of the

* `In addition, of course, are to be noted the well-known Romanist doctrines of the Real Presence, Intercession of Saints, Absolution by the Priesthood, and Purgatory including the efficacy of prayers for the dead.

† Anterior to any translations of the Bible into modern languages, the Vulgate had been declared, to all persons not in sacred orders, a sealed volume. The Ecumenical Council held at Toulouse, in 1229, passed a canon, prohibiting the laity from having the books of the Old and New Testament.-Concil. Tolos. Canon 14: Sabbei Collect., vol. xi. p. 427.

+ "If any one shall say that human sciences ought to be pursued in such a spirit of freedom that one may be allowed to hold as true their assertions, even when opposed to revealed doctrine; and that such assertions may not be condemned by the Church; let him be anathema.'

"If any one shall say that it may, at any time, come to pass in the progress of science, that the doctrines set forth by the Church must be taken in another sense than that in which the Church has ever received, and yet receives them; let him be anathema."

The above, translated for the (New York) Catholic World, by some of the bishops attending the Council, are sections 2 and 3 of Canon IV. of the ŒEcumenical Council of the Vatican, promulgated April 24, 1870. -See Catholic World for June, 1870.

DOGMA OF INFALLIBILITY.

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This

Roman Pontiff are irreformable (irreformabiles) of themselves, and not by force of the consent of the Church thereto." dogma, also, not to be contradicted on pain of anathema.* The peculiar religious ideas, then, against which Protestantism, during three centuries, has failed to make head, are substantially these: A Spiritual Sovereign of Christendom (elected, from time to time, by a College of Cardinals), divinely ordained, infallible, authorized by the Deity to dictate, without appeal, the religion and the morals of the world. A Universal Church in which the Holy Ghost perpetually dwells, keeping it free from all error, and of which the traditions are of equal authority with Scripture; both being derived through plenary inspiration of God. No entrance into Heaven except for those who receive the sacraments. No escape from Hell except by obedience to the Universal Church's commands. No existence of religion outside of the Universal Church.

Denial

* In Chapter IV. of the Dogmatic Decree on the Church of Christ, passed by the Ecumenical Council, and approved by the Pope, July 18, 1870, after defining the character of Apostolic teaching, it is added: "This apostolic teaching all the venerable fathers have embraced, and the holy orthodox doctors have revered and followed, knowing most certainly that this See of St. Peter ever remains free from all error, according to the Divine promise of our Lord and Saviour to the Prince of the Apostles.”

And again, in the same chapter, "We teach and define it to be a doctrine divinely revealed, that when the Roman Pontiff speaks ex cathedrâ, that is, when in the exercise of his office of pastor and teacher of all Christians, and in virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines that a doctrine of faith or morals is to be held by the Universal Church, he possesses, through the Divine assistance promised to him in the blessed Peter, that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed his Church to be endowed, in defining a doctrine of faith or morals; and, therefore, that such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves, and not by force of the consent of the Church thereto.

"And if any one shall presume, which God forbid, to contradict this our definition; let him be anathema." let him be anathema."- Catholic World for September, 1870, pp. 856-8.

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MACAULAY'S ARGUMENT AGAINST THE

to the human soul (outside the Catholic priesthood) of the right to interpret Scripture. Subordination of scientific facts to the Church's doctrines. Finally, a solemn curse denounced against all who oppose or deny any canon promulgated by the Church.

Does it seem to you that TRUTH ought to have been powerless, for centuries, against prescripts such as these ?—that, in all that time, against a Church styling itself infallible, she should have lost ground instead of making progress? One of the most powerful and cultivated intellects of the century, not Roman Catholic, seems to have taken refuge in that conclusion. In the essay from which I have quoted Macaulay says:

"We often hear it said that the world is constantly becoming more and more enlightened, and that this enlightening must be favorable to Protestantism and unfavorable to Catholicism. We wish that we could think so. But we see great reason to doubt whether this is a well-founded expectation. As

to the great question what becomes of man after death we do not see that a highly educated European, left to his unassisted reason, is more likely to be in the right than a Blackfoot Indian. Nor is revealed religion in the nature of a progressive science. All divine truth is, according to the doctrine of the Protestant Churches, recorded in certain books. It is plain, therefore, that in divinity there cannot be a progress analogous to that which is constantly taking place in pharmacy, geology, and navigation. A Christian of the fifth century with a Bible, is on a par with a Christian of the nineteenth century with a Bible, candor and natural acuteness being, of course, supposed equal. It seems to us, therefore, that we have no security for the future against the prevalence of any theological error that has ever prevailed in time past among Christian men.”*

The gist of this is, that, under a system of revealed teach

* Macaulay's Essays: vol. iii. pp. 305–307.

POSSIBILITY OF RELIGIOUS PROGRESS.

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ings, there is no religious progress, nor any reasonable hope for the prevalence of spiritual truth.

Are you content to rest in a conviction thus hopeless? Are you content to labor in your vocation under such discouragement as this?

The triumphs, in our day, of art and science, especially in the production of material wealth, have been vast beyond all former precedent. In 1760 every species of thread was spun on the single wheel; water and wind were the chief inanimate motors; and the horse or the dromedary was the fleetest messenger, except when the intelligence it bore was occasionally anticipated by the beacon-fire on the hill-top, or by signal from the cross-bar and the pivoted arm of that clumsy expedient which was dignified, in those days, by the name of telegraph. Then came a sudden irruption of industrial inventions, fabulous in their results. Have you looked into that subject? If you consult the best English statisticians you will find that in the British isles alone, within little more than a century, the increased power obtained through labor-saving machinery equals the adult manual labor out of two worlds as populous

Again, aside from industrial enterprise, there are the start

* By English political economists the industrial inventions since 1760 are variously set down as furnishing a power equivalent to the unaided labor of from five hundred to seven hundred millions of adults. The mean of these-six hundred millions-may be assumed as near the truth. But as the average available manual labor of any given population is usually estimated as equal to that which might be performed by one-fourth of that population if all were working adults, it follows that the labor of six hundred millions of adult workers is equal to the manual power which resides in a population of two thousand four hundred millions, in other words, of nearly twice the present population of our globe.

Our statistics, in the United States, furnish no sufficient data for a similar calculation. The amount of mechanical power compared to population, though vast and ever increasing among us, averages less, doubtless, here than in England.