THE APPEAL OF ROMANISM TO EDUCATED PROT

ESTANTS.

BY THE REV. R. S. STORRS, D.D., BROOKLYN, N. Y.

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Ir is always easy, though always unsafe, | splendid pomp of the outward spectacle; to underestimate the attractive force of a or that he was moved by a general uncersystem of belief adverse to our own. Stand-tain eccentricity of mind, which might have ing on the outside of it, we see only its ex-made him a Shaker or a Mormon, but which, ternal proportions. The inner chambers, by chance, did make him a Papist; or, finalfilled with whatever precious and pleasantly, that it has been with him a blind leap riches, are hidden from us; and one must be after belief, in a desperate reaction from the of a remarkably sympathetic and compre- lonely gloom of infidelity. hensive mind to be able to enter into them, and to see the whole structure as its inhabitants do.

In one or other of these ways we almost always account for the transfer to Romanism of one who has been educated outside its influences; while at last we are often constrained to leave it, as a strange phenomenon, not wholly explained by any thing which the man himself has said, or any thing which our thoughts can suggest.

It is especially difficult for us as Protestants to understand the attractive power of Romanism. Jealousy of it, as of a stealthy and dangerous system, careless of virtue, eager for power, exquisitely adjusted to win mankind by condoning their vices and con- For some have gone who have certainly secrating their pride-this is an inheritance not been thus impelled; of whose change no to which we are born. And such hereditary one of the motives which I have mentioned impressions ripen with most of us into per- gives any more account than it does of the sonal conviction. Not only does it seem to origin of the Paradise Lost. They are serius hostile to liberty, and to rational progress, ous, devout, conscientious persons, intent on incompatible with a liberal and fruitful civ-learning, and then on doing, the will of the ilization; it seems so distinctly to antago- Almighty; of no peculiar turn of mind, with nize the Gospel, so positively to contradict no marked predominance of imagination or the fundamental ideas of the Divine Gov-emotional sensibility; many of them eduernment-dissociating religion from morali-cated in the best and most liberal Protestant ty, and destiny from character-its descrip- schools; some of them among the noblest of tion and its doom seem so luridly and in- their time, whom it is a serious loss to us to delibly written in history, that we can not, lose. without a distinct and strenuous effort, understand how any should accept it.

We have, therefore, been wont to regard the Roman Church as the Church of the ignorant and the superstitious alone; to expect that those born and trained within it will come out from it, with intelligent protest or with passionate revolt, when they shall have reached a higher level of education and moral force; and it has seemed well-nigh incredible that any one educated under Protestant influences should be allured into its fold.

When such a one has gone to its communion, we have been apt to feel that he must have been moved either by a desire for political preferment, and the aid of the priesthood in his personal schemes; or by the wish for terms of salvation which would leave his lusts free, and yet quiet his fears; or by regard for particular teachers, as Newman or Faber in England, Brownson, Hecker, or Hewit, in this country; or that he was attracted by the tone of authority, and the

And it is to be distinctly observed that these men accept the system of Romanism with no languor or reserve, with no esoteric and half-Protestant interpretation of it, with no thought at all of modifying its dogmas for their personal use by the exercise of a private judgment upon them. They take the system as it stands. They take it altogether. They look with pity, not unmixed with contempt, on those who are eager to adopt its phraseology and to mimic its ceremonies, while declining to submit their minds to its mandates; and for themselves they confess doctrines which seem to us incredible, and conform themselves to practices which look to us like idolatrous mummery, with gladness and pride.

Now, what moves these men? What is the attraction which the system presents to such as these, in Germany, England, this country? an attraction which is strong enough to wholly detach them from their early associations, and to make them devotees of a spiritual power which from child

hood they were taught to dread and to detest?

ure.

stituted, perpetual, inerrant corporation, in which Christ, by the Holy Ghost, is always present; which is filled, in its totality, with his inspiration, and which thus utters, in its decrees, his voice to the world. It does not merely articulate the general Christian con

Christ's mind, as the apostles did in their day, with a superior fitness to modern needs, and with an equivalent, an identical authority.

It is this question to which I am asked to give a partial and rapid answer. Of course it must be an imperfect answer, since I am not a Romanist, in any sense or any measOn the other hand, I am a Congrega-sciousness of truth or of duty; it speaks tionalist, in the broadest significance; believing for myself, without the wish to impose the belief on any body else, that each society of believers, permanently associated for the worship of God, and for the celebration of Christian ordinances, is a proper and complete church; competent to elect and ordain its officers, to administer the sacraments, and to fashion its rules and its ritual, under Christ, while bound to maintain and teach his truth, to honor the law of Christian purity, and to live in unity of spirit, and in fellowship of good works, with all similar societies. So far, therefore, as the Roman organization is concerned, I stand at almost the furthest remove from it; with nobody beyond me, so far as I know, unless it be the Society of Friends.

Debate is, therefore, always in order till the Church has spoken. But after that, doubt is a deadly sin. For it is not a mere perilous dissent from the majority. It is, in its essence, infidelity to Christ. And, on the other hand, the belief of the faithful in a dogma properly formulated and declared needs no argument, allows no hesitation, and asks for no support of reason. It is immediate and final; since it rests solidly on the utterance of the Church, which is to it the testimony of God.

This may seem to us immensely absurd, looked at in the light of history. It may seem prodigiously to transcend all the prerogatives promised by the Lord to the Church to which his truth was given. We may hold ourselves able to count the rings by which the successive increments of influence gathering to that Church hardened at last

And concerning the whole immense system which that organization represents and subserves, I confess my sympathy with the most radical of the Reformers. I believe that the Fathers were thoroughly right in revolting against Rome; that we are under the highest obligations to maintain that re-into the tough and oaken fibre of this unvolt; and that Christian civilization would yielding and gigantic claim. It may seem perish from the earth, if the Papal suprema- to us to put dishonor on the Bible. And we ey should become universal. may feel that it reproduces, with strange exactness, with an almost fearful fidelity, the prediction of Paul concerning that Son of Perdition of whom he forewarned the Thessalonian disciples, "that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." But the claim thus outlined has certainly a subtle and grand attraction for many minds. They do not feel limited, harassed, or forcibly overborne by this Divine authority in the Church. On the contrary, they feel invigorated and elevated by it, because holding themselves assured of the truth, by the very voice of God, speaking now as at the beginning, only speaking now, in tenderness to them, not through trumpet or tempest, in articulate thunders or earthquake throes, but through the consenting votes and voices of consecrated men.

So it can not be that I should understand the system, or feel its attractions, as those do who live in it; and if they were here to speak for themselves, they might well decline to have me represent them. But I can see some of the fascinating features which Romanism offers to its disciples, and can understand, in a measure at least- as it has been part of my business to understand the appeal which it makes to educated Protestants. And from among its attractive forces, selecting them for their prominence and as easy to be exhibited, I will specify eight.

1. The prime secret of its attractiveness for such minds is, I think, that it claims to offer them in the Roman Church a present, living, authoritative Teacher; which has the mind of God immanent in it; which is the witness and the interpreter of Revelation, and is itself the living medium of such Revelation; which has thus authority to decide on all questions of religious doctrine and duty, and whose decisions, when announced, are infallibly correct, and unspeakably important. This is its first claim; imperative in tone, stupendous in substance, unique in its kind, and very effective.

According to it, as you are aware, the bishops in communion with the See of Peter are the Ecclesia docens; the divinely con

It seems to them the grand privilege of their minds to have such a Church; the contemporary of the apostles; full now, as at Pentecost, of the Holy Ghost; a majestic, abiding, undeceivable power, the very body of Christ, through which the present benignant Lord, always in the world, declares with perfect clearness and certainty what is to be believed and what to be done. All their expectations of progress and success in the attainment of divine knowledge rest on this; and their minds are profoundly animated by it. A present revelation, not one in the past

-a revelation through men, not through a book—is that which, according to their conception, now brings to them the thoughts of the Eternal.

forms of goodness and virtue. So it holds Jesus a created teacher, the Holy Ghost an impersonal influence, and regeneration a monkish myth.

Especially in times like ours, when relig- The Evangelical doctrine affirms that man, ious doubt is passionate and ubiquitous, as originally created, was like God in nature, when a whirling and vehement skepticism and like him also in moral perfection; havdarkens and hurtles in all the air, they greeting the true knowledge of him, and standing with peculiar desire and welcome such a ba- in intimate communion with him through sis of certainty, such a guaranty of the truth, the sympathy of supreme and holy love; that such a centre of enlightening and unifying no one of his constitutional powers was lost authority. Amidst the many divisions of in the fall, though their activity was perChristendom they long for this the more. verted, and their development hindered; And the Bible, interpreted by each for him- but that the change which then took place self, seems in no degree to meet their want; was in the essential temper of his heartwhile neither of the most cultured Protest- selfish idolatry and sinful passion supplantant churches offers it satisfaction. ing the Divine love which had preceded, and the inmost dispositions and tendencies of the soul being thereafter averted from God, and directed to selfish pleasure and gain.

Most of all, if they have themselves been assailed by the skeptical spirit, and have wavered and wandered in restless inquiry on the great themes of the soul's well-being, they feel attracted to such a Church, claiming such a prerogative, and offering such relief and assurance; as Döllinger says of Christina of Sweden, that she "took refuge in the ship of ecclesiastical authority from the ocean of philosophical doubt."

And every mind must admit, I think, that there is a certain inspiring grandeur, august yet winning, in such a conception of God's enduring and holy Church; that however far the ambitious corporation whose heart is Jesuitism, and whose head is the Pope, may fail of realizing it, the ideal itself is lofty and seductive; and that our timid and limited human nature, surrounded by so many puzzles, and faced by such tremendous problems, may well at times admit the wish that such a conception had been permitted of God to be realized, and had not been left, as we assuredly hold it to have been, a delusive dream.

The change now needed, therefore, is in this dominant spirit of the heart; to alter the dispositions, to fix the supreme affection upon God, and to restore the spiritual discernment which was possessed, but has been lost. And this is effected by the Divine Spirit, through the truth as his instrument, and especially through the revelation of God's love, as declared, with transcendent fullness and tenderness, in his Son. When this is accomplished, no direct addition is implied to the inherent properties of the soul, but a change is realized in its temper, tastes, and spiritual activities, in its relations to God, and its personal destiny; a change so radical, vital, complete, and so enduring in consequences, as to constitute a true regeneration. Conversion, to the loving obedience of Christ, is its sign and fruit. The beauty of holiness flows from it into life. It is completed in sanctification. And, on the ground of Christ's atonement, he who has not yet reached that sanctity, but in whom its principle has been implanted, is reconciled to God, and is treated as if he had been righteous; is, in other words, justified.

Preaching the Gospel is therefore here the means of regeneration. To lead men to affectionate faith in God, as made manifest in his Son, is the office of the ministry. He who has most of this faith in his heart, other things being equal, is best adapted to excite it in others. The Church and its sacraments are the instruments of God for propagating in the world the truth concerning him, as revealed in his Word, and for main

This is the first of the attractions of Romanism, to an educated mind. Another is2. That it claims to offer to such a mind a body of doctrine, mysterious, no doubt, in some of its parts, but on the whole solid, consistent, consecutive, complete; containing what they accept as a sufficient and satisfying answer to the questions of the soul, the antithesis to infidelity in all its forms, and the consummation of what is true in other systems. It boasts that in this not only the Scripture is fulfilled, but philosophy is illumined, man's history is interpreted, God's ways to man are clearly vindicated; and the appeal which it makes, through this doctri-taining in renovated men the faith and love nal scheme, is of immense persuasive force. The scheme, of course, starts, as every organized theology must, with the doctrine of Original Sin.

Socinianism affirms that man's nature and spirit are right at birth; that they involve, at any rate, no innate and governing propensities to sin, and only need education, with favorable circumstances, to develop all

which by his Spirit have been inspired. His wisdom and grace are illustriously exhibited in this plan of redemption; the angels take new conceptions of him from it; and man is brought back to a holy love which commemorates Paradise, and which prophesies heaven; which, being made complete and immortal, must make a heaven, though every gate of pearl should vanish.

It is communicated in Baptism; in which is effected an instant, essential, complete regeneration-the infusion of a supernatural life, the removal of all corruption of sin, the immediate and full introduction of the soul-its own historians being the witnessesinto the spiritual household of God. All the saving benefits of Christ's redemption are thus and there conveyed to the soul, as it enters upon life, and begins the career which can never close.

The grace thus imparted is afterward con- overwhelming. But the system is logical, firmed in Confirmation.

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thoughtful and questioning minds very at- | ances, and alms, and of the unbloody sacritractive. fice, on the part of those who tarry behind; Whatever there is of mystery, height, in- and that the limiting or remitting of the spiring power, in our doctrine of the Incar-pains is within the prerogative of the aunation or of the Trinity, is here as well; thorities of the Church. whatever of solemn motive and warning in the doctrine of the Fall, and of Human Depravity, and of the Judgment for which we wait. And the advocates of this system hold it complete, while ours is partial; theirs finished, and ours fragmentary.

They do not in the least regard this system as tending to subvert a sound morality, sincere and spiritual piety, belief in Christ as the author of grace and justification, but as simply essential to all these. And while they recognize Evangelical Protestantism as containing still some elements of the truth, they look upon these as scattered timbers, not built into a house, and not sufficient to make one; as plates of iron, worthless separately, and not capable of being framed together, except upon the Roman plan, into the vast and symmetrical fabric which is to bear up, over whelming waves, the heart and hope and faith of the world.

By its claim of authority, and by this articulated body of doctrine, Romanism has a continual attractiveness for many fine minds. 3. There is, too, a vast and subtile power in the representations which it presents of the invisible and spiritual world, and the intimate relations which it declares as always subsisting between that world and this.

So friends who linger, with aching hearts, on this side of the grave, have power still to bless their dead. Across the far untrodden spaces they can send reliefs, and tidings of joy, to those who have vanished from their sight. And, in return, they may receive real aids and blessings from the dead. Those now sainted and beatified can intercede with God for us, and will do this if we invoke them. They are living, conscious, in the presence of God, in enjoyment of the beatific vision, yet informed of what we need and desire-perhaps by the mind of God himself—and are fraternally sympathetic with us. We may pay them homage: not the Latreia, due to God only, or the Uperdouleia, due to the Virgin Mother, but the Douleia, proper to saints. And we may implore with joyful freedom their ready assistance as intercessors for us with the Almighty.

Angels, too, in their power and splendor, and their relative sovereignty over nature and life, are still the guardian spirits of men-of the least and humblest, to whom has come God's gift through Christ.

Especially the Virgin Mother of Christ may be asked to aid us, with her tender sympathy, and her unbounded power with her Son. The growth of reverence for her in the Roman Church shows how dear and alluring the thought of her is to the minds of mankind. The vision of her seems to flash a certain tender light over realms that were otherwise so high as to be dreadful. First, her perpetual virginity is declared. Then, she is formally styled and proclaimed the Mother of God. Then temples are built, and prayers are arranged to be offered to her, as Queen of Heaven. Then her immaculate conception, without stain of original sin, is declared to be a dogma of faith. Now, she is undoubtedly more frequently implored in the Roman Communion than God or Christ.

The human spirit, conscious of affections, and haunted by premonitions, that overpass death, is always reaching out, with eager desire or with forecasting fear, after knowledge of the world which lies beyond its sense or science; a knowledge more exact and complete than God in his wisdom has seen fit to bestow. So necromancy is never dead; and so Spiritism comes, in our own time, to tip its tables and rap its floors, in a juggling offer to disclose the Unseen. Its incitement is in the hunger of the soul for some apprehension of the realms whose bounds, of beauty or fire, it has not reached. And now Protestantism, which limits itself to what has been clearly expressed in the Bible, and which deals timidly even with that, seems vague, undefined, and essentially unsatisfying, in its treatment of all that mystic domain which lies before us, in comparison with the exact descriptions which Romanism presents. This affirms that those who die after bap- And so the whole mysterious realm betism-really regenerate, and having com-yond the grave-from which no traveler mitted no unforgiven and mortal sin, yet returns to us, the gloom and glory of whose confessedly imperfect in action and in vir- shadows and lights have been reflected on tue-are to undergo, in the future state, thoughtful minds from the outset of histocertain temporal pains, by which they are to ry, but the vision of which only death rebe purified, and satisfaction to be rendered veals-seems brought nearer the earth, and to the Divine Justice; that these pains may made palpable by Romanism; its inhabitbe abridged by the offering of prayers, pen-ants to be declared; their relations to us

Women and children are especially attracted-but not they only, the strongest and most philosophic are attracted-by the thought of a Woman, at once maiden and mother, the spotless and illustrious head of her sex, so near the eternal throne of the universe, while full of gentlest memories and love.