Protestantism does not claim for its Church exclusive holiness or infallibility. It defines the Church to be “a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments duly administered.”[67] Why, then, the reaction [pg 397] towards Romanism? It is partly owing to the passive element in man—the wish to be governed, the weariness of independent thought, which led Wordsworth to say,—
“Me this unchartered freedom tires,”—
and which, in “Van Artevelde,” declares that,—
Thought is tired of wandering through the world,
And homeward fancy runs its bark ashore,—
and partly because the Protestant Churches are often less active and diligent in the practical part of Christian work than the Roman Catholic Churches. Instead of a manly Protestantism, they give us a diluted Catholicism. They insist on a creed which has neither antiquity nor authority to recommend it, on sacraments that are no real sacraments, but only symbols, and on a ritual which has neither the beauty nor variety of the Roman worship.
What does the Protestant Church propose to itself as its end? To produce an abstract piety, instead of a concrete piety—not a piety embodied in life and conduct, but taking only the form of an inward experience. If the churches should set themselves the work of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, of removing the vices and crimes of men, of helping the outcasts and visiting the prisoners, they would have a more living piety growing out of this active charity. Their prayer meetings would be much more vigorous when they prayed in order to work, than when they pray in order to pray. Men should not be admitted into the Church because they are pious, but in order to become pious by doing Christian work. By loving, practically, the brother they have seen, they would come to love God, whom they have not seen.
Again: the Protestant Church feebly imitates the aristocracy of the Romish Church. In order to conquer Romanism, we must go on and leave it behind, seeking something better, and finding some more excellent way. Now, the sin of [pg 398] Romanism is its aristocracy; Protestantism ought, then, to give us, in its Church, a Christian democracy. But it keeps up the pernicious distinction between clergy and laity, making the clergy a separate class, and so justifying Milton's complaint that the “Presbyter is only the old priest written large.” It makes a distinction between men and women in the Church, not encouraging the latter to speak or to vote. It makes a distinction between the rich and poor, selling its pews to those who can buy them, and leaving those who are unable to do so outside of the sanctuary. It makes a distinction between Orthodox and heretics, excluding the latter, instead of inviting them in where their errors might be corrected. And finally, it makes an unchristian distinction between good people and bad people; for while Jesus, its Master, made himself the friend of publicans and sinners, the Church too often turns to them the cold shoulder, and leaves them to be cured by the law, and not the gospel.
The following saying of a saint of the desert, Abbot Agatho, is reported by Dr. Newman, who tells it as something wise and good. It seems to us to illustrate, with much naïveté, the tendency of both Catholic and Protestant Orthodoxy, to put right opinion above right conduct.
“It was heard by some that Abbot Agatho possessed the gift of discrimination. Therefore, to make trial of his temper, they said to him, ‘We are told that you are sensual and haughty.’ He answered, ‘That is just it.’ They said again, ‘Are you not that Agatho who has such a foul tongue?’ He answered, ‘I am he.’ Then they said, ‘Are not you Agatho the heretic?’ He made answer, ‘No.’ Then they asked him why he had been patient of so much, but would not put up with this last. He answered, ‘By those I was but casting on me evil; but by this I should be severing me from God.’ ”