crusades against the Albigenses and Waldenses, the horrors of the Inquisition, the papal jubilee
over the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and all those bloody persecutions of innocent people for no
other crime but that of opposing the tyranny of Rome, and dissenting from her traditions? Liberal
and humane Catholics would revolt at an attempt to revive the dungeon and the fagot against heresy
and schism; but the Church of Rome in her official capacity has never repudiated the principle of
persecution by which its practice was justified: on the contrary, Pope Gregory XVI. declared liberty
of conscience and worship an insanity (deliramentum), and Pius IX. in his "Syllabus" of 1864
denounced it among the pernicious and pestilential errors of modern times. And what shall we say
of the papal schism in the fifteenth century, when two or three rival Popes laid all Christendom
under the curse of excommunication? What of the utter secularization of the papacy just before the
Reformation, its absorption in political intrigues and wars and schemes of aggrandizement, its
avarice, its shameless traffic in indulgences, and all those abuses of power which called forth the
one hundred and one gravamina of the German -nation? Who will stand up for the bull of
excommunication against Luther, with its threats of burning him and his books, and refusing the
consolations of religion to every house or community which should dare to harbor him or any of
his followers? If that bull be Christian, then we must close our eyes against the plain teaching of
Christ in the Gospels.
Even if the Bishop of Rome should be the legitimate successor of Peter, as he claims, it
would not shield him against the verdict of history. For the carnal Simon revived and reasserted
himself from time to time in the spiritual Peter. The same disciple whom Christ honored as the
"Rock," on whose confession he promised to build his Church, was soon afterwards called "Satan"
when he presumed to divert his Master from the path of suffering; the same Peter was rebuked
when he drew the sword against Malchus; the same Peter, notwithstanding his boast of fidelity,
denied his Lord and Saviour; and the same Peter incurred the severe remonstrance of Paul at Antioch
when he practically denied the rights of the Gentile converts, and virtually excluded them from the
Church. According to the Roman legend, the prince of the apostles relapsed into his consistent
inconsistency, even a day before his martyrdom, by bribing the jailer, and fleeing for his life till
the Lord appeared to him with the cross at the spot of the memorial chapel Domine quo vadis. Will
the Pope ever imitate Peter in his bitter repentance for denying Christ?
If the Apostolic Church typically foreshadows the whole history of Christianity, we may
well see in the temporary collision between Peter and Paul the type of the antagonism between
Romanism and Protestantism. The Reformation was a revolt against legal bondage, and an assertion
of evangelical freedom. It renewed the protest of Paul against Peter, and it succeeded. It secured
freedom in religion, and as a legitimate consequence, also intellectual, political, and civil freedom.
It made the Word of God with its instruction and comfort accessible to all. This is its triumphant
vindication. Compare for proof Protestant Germany under William I., with Roman-Catholic Germany
under Maximilian I.; England under Queen Victoria, with England under Henry VII.; Calvinistic
Scotland and Lutheran Scandinavia in the nineteenth century, with Roman Scotland and Scandinavia
in the fifteenth. Look at the origin and growth of free Holland and free North America. Contrast
England with Spain of the present day; Prussia with Austria; Holland with Portugal; the United
States and Canada with the older Mexico and Peru or Brazil. Consider the teeming Protestant
literature in every department of learning, science and art; and the countless Protestant churches,
schools, colleges, universities, charitable institutions and missionary stations scattered all over the
globe. Surely, the Reformation can stand the test: "By their fruits ye shall know them."
tuis.
(Tuis.)
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