Reasons for Leaving the Church of Rome

by Laurence J. Nolan

As to your doctrine of the invocation of saints, I will not detain you for any time upon this subject. I never believed in the necessity of invoking them; nor does the intelligent portion of Roman Catholics believe in the necessity of invoking them; nor do any of your divines who have the least pretensions to learning, attempt to say that it is indispensably requisite to have recourse to the invocation of saints: for though your Council of Trent, in the twenty-fifth session, would appear to some to be quite explicit upon the subject, still your divines, in interpreting that council, agree that it is only useful and profitable, but not indispensably requisite for you to have recourse to the intercession of the saints. Such an assertion may be a matter of surprise to some of my Protestant friends, but to you let it serve as a subject of utility: and lest it might be considered as the result of artful invention with me, I will now give you the words of your favorite divine, Dr. Milner, on the occasion.—In his book entitled “The End of Controversy,” and in his “Thirty-third Letter to James Browne, Esq.” he says—“In conclusion you will observe that the Council of Trent barely teaches that it is good and profitable to invoke the prayers of the saints; hence our divines infer that there is no positive law of the church incumbent on all her children to pray to the saints.” Such are the words of your respected but now deceased Rev. Dr. Milner. He died a few years ago. The bare mention of his name carries to each of you the recollection of his character. He was looked on as the standard of your faith, as the almost infallible guide in your religion.—His words are only expressive of the real sentiments of your other divines upon this subject; so that, my friends, you may observe that it is only a partial ignorance among some of you as to the real doctrine in this respect, that points to so wide a distinction between you and my Protestant brethren.

Nor shall I dwell upon the doctrine of confession, the modern observance of which I may at some future period shew to be neither conformable to the word of God, nor sanctioned by the practice of the apostolic age.—And now, my friends, to speak most seriously on the subject, has it not often lulled you into a most dangerous security, that your sins were forgiven you, when you had neither sorrow for the committal of, nor the determination not to commit those crimes again?—However I shall not dwell upon those doctrines at present; but shall now direct your attention to that doctrine with which you are most acquainted—I mean Transubstantiation. I will in this second part of the pamphlet point out to you my reasons, which, guided by the spirit of truth, led me to a disbelief upon this subject of Transubstantiation: and in the third part of this pamphlet, I will produce to you the scriptural arguments that have confirmed my conviction as to that disbelief. But first, I must lay down the doctrine of Transubstantiation according to the Council of Trent.

Roman Catholics assert, that during the mass, according to the words of the Council of Trent, ses. 13 and can. 2—“That the entire substance of the bread is converted into the body, and the entire substance of the wine into the blood of Christ, the appearances of the bread and wine only remaining, and this is called Transubstantiation.”

Now I assert, that such a supposition is directly contrary to our senses and our reason, and as such, is unworthy of our belief. The senses are the avenues or inlets to our reason, while reason becomes the voice of God himself speaking unto us. Reason is the medium of communication between the Creator and the creature. It is the standard of our judgment, and the supreme tribunal where all our knowledge is acquired, and where the existence of the Deity himself becomes discovered to the human mind. Yes, reason is that grand feature, the reflection of the divinity, which in a great degree assimilates man to the image of his Creator; and thus it is, that when the senses give their united testimony as to the existence of an object, and that reason stands forth to pronounce upon the veracity of their assertion, to such conclusive evidence the scriptures attach the seal of infallibility; and it would be blasphemous (according to the words of Christ himself to the Jews, in the case of Lazarus) to deny the force of their allegation. I do not want here to summon before the bar of finite comprehension the infinite power of Eternal Providence—I do not want to uncover the veil of the sanctuary, and pry into the mysteries of that Eternal Being, which hath made darkness his dwelling place, and the thick clouds the pavilion of his glory—I do not deny that the ways of God are unsearchable—that his divine essence is above the reach of human senses—that there are invisible truths far beyond the human comprehension, and that man cannot dive into the unfathomable depths of the Trinity or Incarnation. But is the composition of a little water and flour beyond the reach of my understanding? and when my reason and senses unite in telling me that that composition of flour and water cannot be changed into the body and blood of Christ without implying a principle of self-destroying contradiction, let me ask, is it not more natural to obey the dictates of my reason, telling me, that God will not transgress that moral restraint which the formation of his own laws has voluntarily imposed upon him, is it not better that I should do so than that I should attribute to the Godhead some of the most unaccountable extravagancies that human reason could suggest? Let justice but decide, and truth will bow in affirmation of the remark.

But Roman Catholics, in support of their doctrine of transubstantiation, say, “Cannot he who has formed the heavens and the earth—who has created all things, visible and invisible—who has changed the rod of Moses into a serpent, and the waters into rivers of blood in Egypt—who has changed Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt, and who has changed the water into wine at the marriage of Cana, cannot he (say they) empower the priest, representing the person of Christ, to change the bread into the body, and the wine into the blood of Christ?”

My friends, in my answer to this, let it not be understood that I want to circumscribe infinite power within the narrow precincts of human limitation. I do not want to append to Eternal Providence the confined restrictions of mortality. I know that infinite wisdom can contrive, and infinite power can execute far more than human reason can comprehend; but while I admit the truth of these appeals to divine power in the one instance, I must reject the false supposition of change in the other. For, when God changed the rod of Moses into a serpent, and the waters into rivers of blood in Egypt, or when our Saviour changed the waters into wine at the marriage of Cana; these were changes that were palpably evident to the senses, that the senses judged of, and were not contradictory to reason. But, with regard to the supposed change, during the time of the mass, of the bread into the body, and the wine into the blood of Christ, allow me to tell you, my friends, that I have considered such a change to be contrary to my senses and most repugnant to my reason. For, as often as I had taken into my hands that bread to bless, I found it the same, after, as previous to consecration; having the same texture, presenting the same form, and producing to my mind the self same identical effects. As often as I looked on it after consecration, I observed it to be bread—when I touched it after consecration I felt it to be bread; and “if faith” (as the Roman Catholics must have it) comes from hearing and not from seeing, when I broke the bread after consecration, I both saw and heard the result of its being bread; reason then told me that it was more or less blasphemous to deny the united testimony of my senses giving such unbroken evidence to facts so perceptible to their powers, and I have yielded to such conviction.

Oh, my friends, I had often thought during the time of the mass, that if I could change the bread into the body and the wine into the blood of my Redeemer, that I would consequently possess a most exorbitant power—that I would transcend by the nobleness of my act the infinite majesty of heaven itself—that my Creator should be at the beck of my fancy—that whenever or wherever my will suggested, I might summon Him from the throne of his Eternal Majesty and convert upon the altar of frailty a little scrap of insignificant bread into the body, the blood, the soul and divinity of my Maker. Oh, my friends, that God who measureth the tops of the mountains in a balance, and the waters of the sea in the hollow of his hands—that he, who rideth upon the whirlwinds, making the earth his footstool and the canopy of heaven his covering—that he, who formed the heavens and the earth, all things visible and invisible—that he should descend from his eternal throne to enter into the womb of a virgin mother—there to be inclosed for the long space of nine revolving months, and afterwards to be born, in time, under the figure of a mere child—under the form and the habit of a poor slave; oh, my friends, it is human redemption alone, could call for such an act of humiliation. But that the Saviour of the world, after having offered one, eternal, immeasurable and unspeakable sacrifice for the sins of mankind, and that after having been placed by his own irrevocable decree at the right hand of God, that he should descend from his throne of eternal justice upon the altar of human weakness, and that there, at the mere announcement of a few insignificant words, falling from the lips of a poor weak mortal, he should suffer a wretched collection of diminutive portions of bread, of similar figure, of similar size, but of similar material as common wafer—that he should suffer them to be converted into his Infinite Majesty—that that Infinite Majesty should continue whole and entire under each such particular species of bread—that afterwards he should allow his boundless omnipotence to be confined within the narrow precincts of a poor miserable little box, commonly called a pixis, and then to be hacknied about from place to place, and distributed from person to person according to the whim or caprice of human suggestions—such, my friends, I have considered, would be unworthy of Infinite Majesty—would be derogatory to his eternal attributes—subversive of the principles of that humanity with which God had vested himself, and contradictory to those words which I hold as unalterably true, that if the resurrection has added glory to, it has not annihilated the humanity of a Redeemer.

But you, Roman Catholics, will assert, as an objection to what I have now laid down, that as the senses deceived us in some respects they may for a similar reason deceive us with regard to Transubstantiation: and in proof of your assertion you will say (as others have said already) “that the senses were deceived with regard to the Holy Ghost descending in the form of a dove upon our Saviour receiving baptism from John;” and again you will say, “that the senses have been deceived, inasmuch as they often imagined angels to be men;” and therefore you will conclude, (as many other Roman Catholics have done) that our senses are also deceived with regard to Transubstantiation.

But, my friends, in the above instances the senses did not deceive, inasmuch as the sense of vision or of sight, judges only from appearances, and therefore its testimony in the cases quoted was true. But who would assert that all the senses combined together in the above instances were deceived; for, if all the senses were deceived, how could reason pronounce upon the Holy Ghost being in the form of a dove, or the angels being in the appearance of men, since it was from the senses only that reason formed its judgment upon those occasions? And hence it is, that while in certain cases, one portion of the senses imparts the language of appearances, in the very same cases, another portion of our senses implies the language of reality. And thus it is, that when the senses, in their unimpaired and natural state, view objects at a proper distance and through a proper medium, and that reason pronounces on their veracity, disbelief can be no longer attached to their allegation, and therefore it is, that Transubstantiation must be false; for the bread is a quite palpable and perceptible object to the senses. The sight tells that it is not the body—the touch feels it is not the body—the taste is convinced of its not being the body—and the hearing, from the result of sound, joins in the assertion that it is not the body; while reason also attests the impossibility of its being the body of Christ.

If the senses were to deceive us in objects so perceptible to their powers, and were that to be pronounced as true, what reason declares as a contradiction, then deceit might be ascribed to the Deity—then it might be asserted, that men were led into an inexplicable chaos of illusions, and impostures, and that reason and the senses, which we have received from the beneficent author of nature, as the mediums of our preservation and happiness, were only the gifts of a demoniac power, with the words of no reliance marked on their formation. Oh, my friends, were the senses to be deceived in their combined testimony upon objects so perceptible to their powers as bread and wine, then universal Pyrrhonism would follow, that is a doubt as to all things and a belief as to nothing—then would all the arts and sciences be subverted, and then would the existence of the Deity stand without proof—then the noble structures of religion would totter to their base—revelation itself would be at an end—the death, the resurrection, the ascension and miracles of our Lord, these mighty bulwarks of a Christian’s faith, would be overthrown; for, are not the senses the great external arguments and evidences of Christianity?