THE ROMANIST CONTROVERSY.* THESE are two books of considerable ability
on the Roman Controversy, the first of which is injured by a title that suggests the purpose of the author to set up a man of straw, only that the man of straw may be turned inside out and be shown to be made of straw. Mr. MacLaughlin's real subject is not in reality so absurd as his title suggests. It is not the question, "Is one religion as good as another?" that he discusses, but the question, 'Is any form of Christianity which is founded upon the New Testament as good as a form of Christianity founded on the teaching of a visible Church ?' The former question is almost silly, and it is a pity that Mr. Mac- Laughlin, who writes very well, and knows what he is writing about, should have given a title to his book to which no rational man would devote a moment's considera- tion. If one religion is as good as another, no religion can be true. And the reader is repelled by an ad captandum title which prejudices him (unjustly, we must say) against the discussions which the book contains. These discussions have a great deal more coherence and relevance than any one who judged of the treatise by the title would be at all disposed to infer. Mr. MacLaughlin devotes himself to showing that the theory of Indifferentism has no sanction from Christianity. But has Indifferentism ever had a theory at all P We should say not. The strength of Indifferentism is not in its theory, for it has not got a theory, but in the great practical difficulty in an age when Christians, even of the most energetic holiness, are so ter- ribly divided, in distinguishing between the true and false forms of Christian teaching. Father MacLaughlin has no difficulty in showing that it was not, in the early days of Christianity, enough to live a religious life and fear God, and give alms to the people who needed alms, as the Roman centurion Cornelius did, unless the man who did so was eager for fresh light as to his duty to God, and determined to avail himself to the full of such fresh light as might be afforded him. This is what Father MacLaughlin says of Cornelius :— "In the language, then, of inspiration, he is declared to be a good man—to be a man who was full of the fear of God, of the love of God—one who spent long hours in prayer, and who divided his substance largely and generously with the poor—one, too, the power of whose example had been such that all the members of his household were influenced by it—walked in uprightness as he did, and practised similar virtues. Now, what more was wanted ? Was he not moving on securely to heaven in his present state ? Would • (1.) Is One Religion as Good as Another 7 By the Rev. John MacLaughlln. London: Burns and Oates. 1898.—(2.) The Bible and the Papacy. By the Rev. R. Baloney. M.A. Cambridge. London: Regan Paul, Trenoh, and Co. 1889. he not be sufficiently prepared for a place in heaven by continuing to live as he had lived hitherto ? And if the good qualities which are ascribed to him, and the many and exalted virtues he is said to have practised, had been sufficient to qualify him for a place in heaven, why not leave him as he was ? Perhaps he was following his present lights better than he would follow stronger and fuller illuminations, and corresponding with the graces he was actually receiving more perfectly than he would correspond with more abundant ones. Why, then, not leave him as he was ?—why take any further trouble with him ? God, however, did not leave him as he was ; He condescended to take further trouble with him, if I may be allowed that familiar way of expressing the idea. He sent an angel from heaven to Cornelius. And the angel, in the name of Him who sent him, commanded Cornelius to invite St. Peter, that St. Peter might come and instruct him and the members of his family as to what they must do."
That is very well put, and no doubt the inference that Christ's teaching involved a great deal more than the creed of the pious Jew, and implied that it was incumbent on the pious Jew to recognise the higher truth of Christ's teaching and act upon that teaching, is quite certain. Nor is it doubtful that the primitive Church was the authoritative representative of Christ. So far, no one will differ from Father Mac- Laughlin's presentation of the Christian principle, as opposed to Indifferentism, though when he assumes, and when Father Belaney asserts, that St. Peter's primacy and the primacy of his successors was a principle of the Church for all time, a very great difficulty arises at once. It may be admitted that our Lord did mean to give St. Peter a certain authority over the other eleven Apostles, though there is not a trace of his receiving any such authority over St. Paul, who boldly says that he "withstood" St. Peter "to the face," and whose autho- rity to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles was certainly not conferred upon him through the intermediate agency of St. Peter. And, further, as for St. Peter's successors having ever been designated as entitled to the same authority that Peter himself had,—a question on which the whole issue turns, for to any ordinary reader of the New Testament it appears that St. Peter was chosen to be at the head of the Apostles because his special character designated him for that position, and not because it was necessary to the institution of the Church that some one of the Apostles should be chief, —no Roman Catholic controversialist has, so far as we know, ever even pointed to words of Christ's that so much as suggest an assertion of the kind. Moreover, a priori it sounds at least as improbable that an Alexander VI. should be the official representative of Christ's religion on earth, as that Judas Iscariot should have been made the chief of the Apostles, the one commissioned to " strengthen " his brethren, instead of St. Peter. Father Belaney says on this point :— " A short retrospective notice of St. Peter's life will show that the supremacy conferred upon him was an act of Christ. From the time of his call, our Lord's conduct towards him was excep- tional, making it clear to the other apostles that he was destined to some pre-eminence. When Jesus' (immediately after His baptism) saw him, He said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona, thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation a stone.' To none of the others was this said. He changed none of their names. This could not, nor was it intended it should, escape their notice. Some of the other apostles were fishermen, and had their ships also, as well as St. Peter. They could not but see that it was always St. Peter's ship that our Lord went into, whether it was to cross the lake, or to teach the multitude on the shore from it. This was uniformly the case, as the evangelists all notify. It was at the very beginning of His mission that our Lord spoke the above parables, and it was from the deck of St. Peter's ship that they were spoken. That circumstance would have its own lesson to them, as it has to us. Again, we read of the miraculous draught of fishes which were caught by St. Peter, when 'he let down the net,' at the bidding of our Lord, and of the effect it had, not only upon those who were with him in his own ship, when they found their net breaking, and their ship sinking, but on those also who were his partners in another ship,' and who had come to their aid. Two of those were the disciple whom Jesus loved, and his brother St. James. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me for I am a sinful man, 0 Lord : for he was astonished and all that were with him, at the draught of fishes that were taken. And Jesus said to Simon, Fear not, from henceforth thou shalt catch men.' It is to St. Peter alone that he thus speaks, though the others were his apostles also. And it is St. Peter alone who makes the reply to Him. When the rest of the apostles on another occasion saw Peter, at the bidding of their divine master, walking on the water,' upheld by His divine hand, we can guess what their con- clusions would be, in regard to St. Peter. None of them had ventured to cast themselves out of the ships as he had done, nor had been bid, as he had been, to do so. Again, when they saw St. Peter draw his sword in the garden to defend his Master, which none of them did, and as the sword had been got by our Lord's own request, the act of St. Peter would have a special personal significance in their eyes. Again, when they heard our Lord saying to St. Peter, Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath de- sired to have you that he may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not, and thou, being con- verted, confirm thy brethen.' When they heard this, which was among the last words spoken by Him in the flesh, they could no longer doubt which of them had been appointed by our Lord to be the greater,' i.e., the head of that kingdom which He had just spoken of to them, and which had been so long a cause of perplexity to them. Again, that our Lord should address Himself to St. Peter (` Simon, Simon,' &c.), as if Satan had selected St. Peter for some severe trial of his faith and fidelity above that of the others, at the time of his instalment in the office of supreme ruler of Christ's Kingdom, has a singular significance. It created a close, and personal, resemblance between him and his divine Master, who had allowed Satan similarly to tempt Himself at the commencement of his own ministry. Yet while He now allows Satan to tempt His chosen representative along with the rest of the Apostles. He at the same time enables him by His prayers to overcome the Tempter, as he had Himself overcome him. The mystery is the same in both cases. It puts St. Peter on a higher level with Himself, so far as the unceasing enmity between Satan and our Lord's Kingdom, in the world is concerned. Again, He gives His own name, Rock,' to St. Peter, but to none else. According to Daniel, He Himself was the stone cut out of the mountain,' of which Isaias writes, Thus saith the Lord, Behold I lay in Zion, a precious corner stone.' St. Paul calls the rock which supplied the children of Israel with water, following them' during their forty years' pilgrimage, in the wilderness, Christ.' It followed them till they reached the end of their journey, though another (Joshua) had taken the place of Moses, who struck the blow that brought the water forth. How was the rock, Christ ? some one will ask. When He said to Peter, Thou art a rock,' it was equivalent to saying. I put you and your successors, to the end of the world, in my place, as the sovereign rulers of my Kingdom.' As the rock struck by Moses in the desert, is said by St. Paul to have been Christ, because it was a typo of Him ever following His people, it became also a type of each of St. Peter's successors.'
Yet St. Paul's words about resisting " Ceplms to the face" at Antioch, because he "walked not uprightly," and speaking of him as one of those "who seemed to be pillars," not as one of those who were pillars, are very unlike the words of a teacher who regarded St. Peter's position as one of primacy over himself. "But from those who were reputed to be somewhat (whosoever they were it maketh no matter to me, God accepteth no man's person), they, I say, who were of repute,
imparted nothing to me." Surely these are not the words of a loyal follower towards his chief.
The insuperable difficulty, however, of the Romanist position is that it presents the official position of the head of the Church as representing infallible doctrine, as if it were one of much greater importance than the adequate moral representation of Christ's earthly life. We can, of course, quite understand why this should be the attitude taken in the interests of the Church as an effective institution. But is it conceivable that if that view of the Church had been taken by our Lord, he would not have impressed upon his disciples most carefully that, bad or good, the primate among his Apostles, and the successors of the primate, were always to be submitted to in matters of doctrine? whereas nothing is more conspicuous than the absence of any such provision for a division between the spiritual and the doctrinal functions of the Church in the sayings of Christ and the writings of the New Testament. St. Paul surely expressly denies any doctrinal primacy that might have over- ruled his teaching, nor is there a hint in the New Testament of any conceivable separation between the sphere of doctrinal authority and the sphere of moral and spiritual influence. Is it conceivable, for instance, that if instead of at once going and hanging himself after the betrayal, Judas Iscariot had pro- nounced a doctrinal judgment, the early Church would have looked upon that judgment as authoritative in the absence of any declaration by St. Peter overruling that judgment ? Yet Judas's character was hardly worse, probably not nearly so bad, as that of one or two of the Popes.
The strength of the Romanist controversy is always to be
found on the a priori side of the argument, on the argument from what must have been, what ought to have been, what
could not but have been the claim of a Church that was to establish the kingdom of Christ ; not from what actually was its claim in the primitive times. Its weakness is on the historical side. Convincing proofs of fallibility, of error, are answered by assertions of the absolute necessity to a working institution of the ecclesiastical kind, of absolute protection against liability to error ; proofs that, so far as the deposit of faith is concerned, Christ established no doctrinal tribunal of final appeal, are answered by arguments to show that if he had not done so, there would be no finally authoritative Church at. all on earth. Well, suppose there be none; does it follow from that, that divine Providence does not rule the Church and gradually eliminate the errors from her teaching, and establish the truth in it ?
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